An edited version of my Pinterest Spring/Summer Style board, where you can also find all the links & sources for these images
The title of this post is perhaps a tad misleading: I've always had a very defined sense of style - generally involving dresses, cardigans, collars, polka dots, stripes, and lots and lots of navy blue - so it's not that I needed to find a new style so much as I've recently wanted to be sure that said style was at least vaguely age-appropriate.
I turn 37 in June, which I am quite frankly terrified about. 40 comes ever closer and I don't understand how it crept up on me so damn fast (I swear I was just 22 a couple of years ago). Now the very human fact of ageing itself doesn't bother me too much; most of my fears are related to lifestyle and, particularly, fashion. Questions plague my mind, like can I still get away with dressing almost exclusively in H&M's Divided range? Should I really be wearing the same coat that every Year 9 girl at school also seems to own? Or is it time to give up the fashion ghost and start wearing stylish separates from White Stuff and Boden?
Now, considering I still get ID'd on a semi-regular basis, I'm relatively confident that dressing 'too young' isn't an issue for me yet. However, as much as I think it's important to wear what I damn well want, I have to agree with the fashion maxim that if you remember something from the first time round, you probably shouldn't be wearing it the second. With my usual shopping haunts such as Topshop and H&M crammed with 90s-inspired grunge fashions for the past year, this has been a hard lesson to learn. As much as I'm drawn to the little floral dresses and Docs look, I just can't bring myself to try them on. I fear the sight of mutton in the mirror.
But the more ladylike - and yes, perhaps more age-appropriate - catwalk trends, such as you might find at Zara, aren't really me either (I've been called a lot of things in my time, but ladylike is emphatically not one of them). What's a girl to do?
Instead of resorting to the Boden catalogue, I've been keeping my eye out for new fashion inspirations; women who put together outfits that catch my eye, which I can then try and emulate when I'm out shopping. To my not-so-great-surprise, as soon as I got pinning it became clear that stripes, brogues, polka dots and collars are all still very much what I want to be wearing. Throw in a midi skirt or two, add some brighter colours to my usual navy blue, and I think I've got this style thing sorted.
