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To contribute to this collective history project, send pictures and stories about the older women in your life to americanagefashion@gmail.com. The more information you can include (date, place, etc.), the better.-
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Category Archives: 2000s
Black Legends in Blackglama
I never understood the wording of these once ubiquitous ads for mink coats. The people pictured in the ads were contemporary celebrities—legends in their own time. To underscore that fact, their names were never mentioned in the photo. Surely they … Continue reading
Book Review: Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
What are your options if you are old and poor in America? That’s a question examined in Jessica Bruder’s bracing book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. She traces the journeys of Americans living in trailers and campers who … Continue reading
Posted in 2000s, 2010s
3 Comments
Age Affirmative Advertising
How do you sell products designed for older people? The linguistic twists and turns of advertisers have always interested me, so I took a look at the collection The Aging Consumer, edited by Aimee Doret (New York, 2010.) The most … Continue reading
Today’s Fit Patterns by Sandra Betzina—A Line for Older Women?
In the Spring of 1999, Vogue Patterns launched a new line by well-known sewing expert, Sandra Betzina. This wasn’t just a collection of new designs; instead, Betzina introduced a new sizing system that she called “Today’s Fit.” “Today’s woman doesn’t … Continue reading
The Wearing of the Green
Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and I’m fascinated by the American convention of wearing green for this holiday. Do the Irish themselves do it, I wonder? And is there any other holiday when a certain color is considered a requirement? … Continue reading
Olive Kitteridge’s Homemade Dress
I found Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Olive Kitteridge quite by accident at my local library’s used bookstore. It examines a difficult woman growing old, starting at a tough spot in her marriage on through to widowhood. Olive is … Continue reading
Book Review: The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane von Furstenberg
Back in the days when I wore dresses, I didn’t find the wrap dress very practical. When I wore it, the style was given to constant wardrobe malfunctions both on the top and the bottom. Since Diane von Furstenberg’s career … Continue reading
Posted in 1970s, 1980s, 1990, 2000s, 2010s
Tagged book review, designers, textile patterns
4 Comments
Oscar de la Renta and the Older Woman
The Oscar de la Renta fashion exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco has one unusual element: perhaps half of the clothes on display came from the collections of contemporary women. A good portion of these were red … Continue reading
Donna Karan in the Black
I’ve never bought anything by American designer Donna Karan—her clothes are far above my price range. But after reading her new autobiography, My Journey, I think I might have been influenced by her approach to clothing. In the late eighties, … Continue reading
Koko Beall—A Life in Fashion Design
When I wrote about a favorite Vogue Pattern designer Koko Beall in 2014, I didn’t know whether or not she was still alive. Through the magic of the internet, her daughter Victoria Beall found my post. She sent the happy … Continue reading