If you have not yet discovered the novels of British writer Linda Grant, seek them out. They are a treat for anyone interested in how clothes express character in fiction. Her Booker Prize nominated The Clothes on their Backs is all about the transformative power of dress. It’s not surprising, then, that Grant has written a fascinating non-fiction book on clothing with an informative subtitle “The Art of Adornment, the Pleasures of Shopping, and Why Clothes Matter.”
Since Grant is a woman of a certain age, born in 1951, a big topic in this book is what women should wear as they age. She notes that her mother’s generation still had clear rules on how to dress: “[A woman] must reach eighteen before she could wear her hair up. After thirty it was no longer permissible to have long hair at all. A lady wore gloves. She always wore stockings. She never left the house without putting her face on. At fifty, if she was rich, the reaching of middle age would reward her, in compensation for the loss of her youth and the privileges that went alongside it, with a mink coat and diamonds.” Maybe these rules held for the British upper middle class, but my own Illinois-born mother had already thrown them out along the way by the time she was fifty.
Grant deplores the fashion advice that older women should stick to the classics in dress. While elegant on some, these styles make her feel invisible. Nor does she want to dress like an eccentric. “To be a glamorous eccentric one requires not just glamour but also eccentricity, which is not a condition of being well-dressed, but an essential aspect of one’s identity. I would not call myself an eccentric.”
What then does Linda Grant want to wear? “I have come to reject the classic charms of the beige trench coat in favor of glamour, or at least clothes with attitude. Not the girlish charms of the sprigged tea dress or jeans, but old-school in-your-face, sock-it-to-me-Mamma high heels and a hint of cleavage.” You won’t see me in low cut dresses or high heels, but my orange-loving soul adores this bit of advice: “Never go beige into that good night, there will be more than enough time for neutrals in the darkness of the grave.”
This book is a philosophy of dress, with attitude. I guarantee a good read.









