Instagram – On the road @midlifechic
Most of the outfits you see on Instagram are people showing you what works for them. So here are a few of mine from days when I’d see something on a model or a friend and try to make it work on my body.
I wore tops stopping at my widest point and boots that chopped my legs up making them look shorter than they already are. None of the clothes were bad, they just weren’t right for my frame and it cost me a lot of time and money working out why.
Once you understand the lines of your own body it all comes clear.
I’ll be rolling out more of my mistakes here over the next few weeks.
The full seminar showing you how to do it is in my Substack newsletter, Onwards
(Read “How to know which clothes suit your body shape” Link In Bio)
Which of these mistakes have you made? There’s no shame, we learn from each other - I’ve done them all and more!
#midlifechic #gearingupto60 #over50style #personalstyle #bodyshape
Every ‘how to build a capsule wardrobe’ piece I read insists on a perfect white shirt... a perfect trench coat... and a perfect little black dress. Over the years I’ve been convinced into buying them but I never wear any of them because they don’t work for my body - those rules were written for gamine French women, not people with a frame like mine.
It took me 12 years and a lot of expensive mistakes to realise I’d been trying to put clothes I’d seen on models onto a body I hadn’t analysed. So, over the next few weeks I’ll share the tools I used to finally make sense of how to get dressed. I’ll start by helping you to understand your frame, then by working out the woman you want to be, then I’ll share the ten questions I answer before I let myself buy anything.
I won’t be telling you to buy what I’m wearing because my clothes were chosen for my frame and you need to know yours. It might be that you already have everything you need in your wardrobe - you’re just not putting it together in the best way for your silhouette.
I’ll go through it here in as much detail as I can in tiny squares but the full seminars are already on Substack in my newsletter Onwards. (Read “How to know which clothes suit your body shape” in my Substack - Onwards - Link In Bio)
But for now tell me - what ‘capsule wardrobe essentials’ have you bought and never worn?
#midlifechic #gearingupto60 #over50style #personalstyle #midlifestyle
AD| I put this one off for years. Not the fun bits of Gearing up to Sixty, like the travelling and the plans, but the dull job sitting underneath all of it: working out what was actually in my pension.
Mine had ended up scattered everywhere. A bit of employed, then years of self-employed, maternity leave in between when nothing went in at all, and a few old pots with logins I’d completely forgotten. Nobody nudges you to sort it when you work for yourself, so it just kept slipping down the list.
The surprise was how much easier the planning felt afterwards, once I could see the whole picture in one place. I used PensionBee to pull it together. Your situation might look nothing like mine, but for me, seeing it laid out beat the vague dread I’d been carrying around.
If your working life has taken a few turns too, the link’s in my bio.
Capital is at risk.
Combining pensions isn’t right for everyone, so check you won’t lose valuable benefits or guarantees, or pay exit fees, before you transfer.
Ad| When we got married 25 years ago we didn’t have the time or money for a proper honeymoon so this year has been about making up for it.
Last week we did an intensive salsa immersion in Medellín with some of you. Then we closed it off in Curaçao with dinner by candlelight on the beach so I feel as though we finally had the honeymoon we missed.
Gearing up to my 60th birthday next year is making me take stock of what matters and after 25 years I’m very aware that this relationship will be a huge part of the years to come.
For a long time it’s had to survive behind work and family but if the next years are going to be as much fun as I hope they will be, I know I have to make it a priority now.
Two of my boys have boomeranged back so our house hasn’t gone quiet yet but it will… and then there will just be the two of us. So I’m glad we kicked things off with a big trip.
Thank you Sandals for being the luxury part of a honeymoon that finally came along 25 years later. For a week we kicked back and allowed ourselves to be looked after. Real life calls but it’s been so good to get far, far away from it for a while.
Did you have a honeymoon or are you still owed one?
#SandalsResorts #SandalsRoyalCuracao #midlifecreator #ageisstyle #SilverWedding
Ad| You sent in so many questions about Sandals and Curaçao that I’ve answered them all in this carousel. Is it value for money? Is it full of loud Americans? Do you feel comfortable ordering whatever you fancy? Is it safe, and were we mad to come in hurricane season?
They’re all fair questions and as I get closer to sixty I ‘m thinking much more carefully about what kind of travel I want because every trip really matters now. A lot of it comes down to whether I can switch off and order another cocktail without feeling guilty. After travelling independently for 3 weeks this was the week we allowed ourselves to be looked after... and I wanted to find out if it’s something that I’d want to do again.
Swipe through for the straightforward answers, and if there’s anything else you’d like to know, ask me in the comments and I’ll come back to you.
#SandalsResorts #SandalsRoyalCuracao #over50travel #over50creator #midlifetravel
Ad| Last night Mal described this as a cruise for people who don’t like cruises and it’s probably true.
Everything’s included and arranged but there’s no table of strangers you’ve been assigned to and there’s no organised fun you can’t escape if you want peace. If you’re in the mood to sit in a corner with a book there are endless quiet spots.
There are 8 restaurants and 3 food trucks - more than we have nights for. Two need booking and you can walk into the rest... steak, European, Latin American, seafood, sushi, Mediterranean, pizza and Dutch pastries.
And when we did want to get out, we went. We spent an afternoon and evening in Willemstad with @curacaotb, wandering around as the sun set.
It feels and looks a tropical version of Amsterdam. Punda vibes came to life at night - a pure explosion of Caribbean joy.
I haven’t cooked, booked, paid for or carried a thing since we arrived here with @sandals_ uk on Sunday. I’m not in the mood to go home!
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#midlifetravel #over50travel #over50creator #slowtravel # Curacao sandalsresorts SandalsRoyalCuracao
Ad| We landed here on Sunday after 3 weeks of on the hoof, gritty travel and I haven’t had to make a single decision since.
I’ll admit I’ve spent years being a bit sniffy about all-inclusives. Then we did four flights and a fortnight of daily salsa lessons, hosted other couples in a city none of us knew very well and went out every night dancing till the early hours.
But then we arrived in Curacao to find a car already waiting and a room already chilled… and I understood the appeal completely.
I think you can enjoy both, the gritty type of experiential travel and this kind. One makes the other better and I suspect we enjoyed Colombia even more knowing this was waiting at the end of it.
@Sandals_UK have invited us here for a few days so I’ll be sharing every little detail of not lifting a finger.
#SandalsResorts #SandalsRoyalCuracao #midlife #ageisstyle travelover50
This is us on day one the first time around with @dancesomoloco in Medellin and although we were rubbish I’ve left it in so you can see exactly where we started.
By your late 50s you’re used to being fairly good at the things you do and it had been a long time since either of us had walked into a room with absolutely no idea what of we were doing. Salsa changed that!
It’s humbling being a beginner at anything and I think it does you good to be humbled now and then. It reminds you what it feels like to try hard at something and still get it wrong.
What surprised me more was what it did for the two of us. Mal and I have been together a long time and you’d think we’d have patience down to a fine art but that’s much easier when nobody’s standing on anybody’s feet. Over the fortnight we had to learn all over again to wait while the other one got it, to help rather than correct, to back each other up when the teacher was watching and mostly to laugh when it went wrong... which it did. A lot!
Those are the qualities we’re going to need more of as we get older together and we have to practice for that as well - all of us do.
The last clip is us last week in a club - still fumbling but getting each other through.
Have you tried learning something from scratch with your other half? I’d love to know how you got on.
#midlifetravel #over50travel #over50creator #experientialtravel #colombiatravel
A month away, 18 days of it in Medellin, Colombia and we did it in two halves.
The first part was just the two of us in a flat in Laureles, working in the same cafe every day until it was time for a salsa class and an early night thanks to jet lag.
Then we moved over to El Poblado, 4 of you came out to join us and we threw ourselves into a salsa immersion with @dancesomoloco
I’ve started calling this vertical travel - diving deep into one destination rather than skimming across lots of them horizontally.
The four Midlifechicers who came are our age and wanted exactly what we wanted, they’re people who are fascinated by other cultures and are not afraid to eat in a backstreet.
The surprise was everyone else in the group - in their 20s and 30s who never once treated us as the oldies.
I don’t think it was simply good manners, it’s more that nobody notices your age when you’re giving life your all.
That’s the attitude I want to take into my sixties!
So where would you spend a month living if you could?
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#midlifetravel #over50travel #over50creator #slowtravel #colombiatravel
People keep asking me why Medellín. It’s not a holiday but that’s the point. Last week we just picked our ordinary lives up and brought them here - work, coffee, the same old routine BUT with a daily salsa class at the end of each day and then all of the spice that Colombia adds to everything.
Heading towards 60, I don’t want to just pass through another culture any more, I want to be absorbed by it. Why wouldn’t you?
#Medellin #LivingAbroad #LifeAfter50 #MidlifeAdventure #GearingUpTo60
A few people have asked about my hair colour - is it natural or not…?
A few years ago I grew my colour out and tried grey. It didn’t suit me because my skin tone is too warm so I sadly accepted that I wasn’t one of those women who pull it off with panache.
When I had it coloured again though it felt fake - until I found a colourist who really understood older hair.
So meet my colourist André at Hershesons, he refuses to cover the whites completely and he doesn’t strip them away.
He blends colour in but retains 40% of the natural colour so my own whites run through the highlights and lowlights rather than hiding away.
The result doesn’t pretend that I’m not ageing but it gives my skin tone a better boost than my natural colour would.
And because so much of my own colour is woven through, the regrowth just melts in. In these ‘before’ pictures it hadn’t been done for six months.
Then @hair_by_premlee cuts and finishes it, because a good shape is what makes grey look chosen rather than accidental.
Last time I was in, I asked them for their tips on ageing hair. I’ve saved their best ones into the post above, the ones I’d have loved to know years ago.
Your hair is the best investment you make on a cost per wear basis. But don’t let anyone tell you what to do with it - it’s up to you whether you colour it, blend it or go completely natural.
For me though there’s something freeing about working with my natural ageing rather than trying to hide it.
To colour or not is always a hot topic so tell me what you do with yours.
(With thanks to André and Premlee, both at @hershesons. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with my hair).
#Midlifechic #GearingUpToSixty #GoingGrey #MenopauseHair AgeIsStyle
Don’t go gently into that good night, not while there’s still fun to be had out there... and you already know there’s plenty.
Don’t let anyone dumb you down... tell you you’re too old... that it isn’t appropriate... that you should know better at your age.
Because you do know better. You know that life’s short and it’s for seizing. This is our time to be free, to have fun.
Remember, we’re not fading softly, we’re staying alive.
How do you defy people’s expectations of ageing?
#midlife #ageisstyle #stayingalive #midlifewomen #midlifechic
