In our culture, aging is attached to a perceived degradation of beauty, fitness and fun. But—happily—this is changing. Who lives the longest? Older women! And they’re starting to be noticed more as a market in the fashion and beauty industry. Older women are the ones with the financial means to buy clothes, makeup and other accoutrements.
“We’ve earned every line in our faces: grief, loss, laughter, reinvention, tears, the lot,” say a lot of our elders in Woodbury. The late Inez Oehlke, who at age 95 became the Woodbury Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year, used to say, “Lines are a map of where you have been.” The late Helen Van Allen, another of our residents, celebrated her win not long after as the Blair Catalog Customer of the Year.
“How the elderly dress is being forgotten about in the fashion industry, and the outfits you find on the streets in our cities are boring,” Van Allen believed. She was passionate about how older people look. Glamour, sophistication and style is what elders want, too.
Margaret Wachholz is the campus marketing director at Woodbury Senior Living. In her column, she shares observations and wisdom about aging and senior living in our community.
