Remember when there were so many do’s and do nots when it came to fashion? Unbreakable rules and regulations when it came to wearing this with that or what not to wear or what was age appropriate….The fashion police were alive and strong back in the day and if memory serves me well, we took it seriously….
Do you recall the one about long hair is only for the under 40’s….how that has changed…thank goodness…Rule number 1 would be well and truly broken on my part…Some of the most gorgeous women in the world, above the age of 40, have below shoulder length hair…
What about no denim with denim? That one is still worth following in my opinion…denim+denim = carpenter or painter not femme fatale…
The white rule….No white at weddings, unless you are the bride….and white shoes were a no no, unless we are talking tennis shoes….in fact wasn’t there a no white rule after Labour Day and before Memorial Day in the States? Today I think it is permissible to wear white anywhere, anytime…even to weddings because very often the bride chooses a colourful gown…
The no ‘brown with black’ or heaven forbid…’navy and black rule’….that is so over and these days some of the best combinations in fashion around…
Matching bags and shoes….If they didn’t match…what an infringement….a catastrophe of the highest order…….I can’t remember when I have worried about that one…and now I love an eclectic pairing most of all….
Mixing the metallics…I am unsure about this one….It seems to be a green light to merge the gold with the silver and the bronze…but I am not convinced…As for jewellery, somehow mixing the metals is an easier meld…
Red hair meant no red….How that one has changed….I love a redhead in red….Imagine Joan Harris aka Christina Hendricks not strutting around in a little rouge….
Leather…all the rules have been broken….It was once for belts, bags and shoes only….Men, and only a certain style of man wore a leather jacket….. Now le leather is la mode for le monde…
Tights….No self respecting woman would venture out without tights or should I say ‘pantyhose’…… Every bare leg was covered in flesh covered nylon…sometimes the ”flesh’ colour resembled more the colours of the desert than the colours of human flesh….. Today ‘tights’ are a stand alone fashion accessory…thick, thin, patterned or plain…..and wearing flesh coloured tights is more an office look than a social requirement…
Fashion rules have relaxed and wearing fashion has become about the individual rather than the social norm….Now what we wear and how we wear it is our call…Designers might dictate the trends but we are the interpreters, the translators of this exotic language….xv
