Who Says You Can’t Wear That After 50?

On long hair, leather pants and dressing for yourself after 50

When I turned 40, I started growing my hair.

Long Hair, Don't Care

Not because I was having some sort of midlife crisis. Quite the opposite. I had a very sensible plan: my hair grows painfully slowly, and I knew I would have to cut it short when I turned 50. So I figured I had ten good years left. I would grow it as long as I could, enjoy it, and then presumably on the morning of my 50th birthday report to the salon and have it all chopped off.

What a complete farce.

I’m 52 now. My hair is about the same length it was in my thirties, and I have absolutely no intention of cutting it simply because I’ve passed some imaginary age limit. But the funny thing is, I genuinely believed this rule. Who made it?

I certainly didn’t. And yet somehow I had absorbed the idea that long hair belonged to younger women and that, at a certain age, the appropriate thing to do was cut it into a shorter and more sensible style.

It was practically a rite of passage. If women hadn’t already cut their hair short after having kids, they cut it at 50.

When I look at photographs of women in their fifties from decades ago, they often seem so much older than women the same age today. The clothes were different, certainly, but so was the hair. Somewhere along the way, women reached a certain age and seemingly en masse cut it off. Long hair was for the young.

The Haircut That Never Happened

There are plenty of perfectly good reasons to cut your hair short. Maybe you love short hair. Maybe it suits your face beautifully. Maybe you’re sick to death of washing, drying, colouring and maintaining long hair and would happily throw your blow dryer out the window.

Fair enough.

But turning 50 isn’t one of them.

For me, long hair is actually practical. I wear it up when I’m at the gym or running around during the day, and I like having the option of wearing it down when I go out at night. Short hair doesn’t particularly suit my face, so I see no reason to cut it. I colour it too.

I don’t have a lot of grey yet, but what I do have isn’t the beautiful, soft silver I see on some women. Every six months or so, I get blonde highlights that blend the grey rather than completely cover it. Some still shows through. I’m fine with that. I just prefer the way the blonde softens it.

Which brings me back to the bigger question: why were women given so many rules about what they are supposed to look like as they got older? And why did so many of us follow them without ever asking who wrote them?

Apparently, Sexy Has an Expiration Date Too

Hair isn’t the only rule.

There also seems to be a point at which women are expected to stop dressing “sexy.”

Cover the arms. Watch the neckline. Nothing too tight. Nothing too short. Perhaps reconsider the leather pants.

I’m not buying it.

I certainly dress more comfortably than I used to, and my tolerance for heels has declined considerably. But I also wear form-fitting jeans. I wear heels occassionally. I wear low-cut tops.

Guess what? I wear leather pants and lace.

• 

• 

Some days I crave the comfort of an oversized sweater and jogging pants. Other days I feel downright sexy, and my clothes say so.

At 52, I don’t see why those two versions of me can’t occupy the same closet.

In fact, I probably appreciate my body more now than I did when I was younger. I exercise. I strength train. I eat well—most of the time. I work at staying strong and healthy, and I enjoy the way I look. But I don’t believe anyone should have to earn their leather pants at the gym. Your body doesn’t need to look a certain way before you’re allowed to enjoy it.

So I’m not about to start hiding my body behind layers because someone else has decided that’s what a woman my age is supposed to do. If you don’t like my leather pants, I suspect we’ll both survive.

Who Made These Rules Anyway?

Men, religion, fashion magazines, other women, generations of people who believed women should quietly become less visible as they aged, probably a little of all of them.

I do wonder, though, whether some of these rules have less to do with fashion than we’ve been led to believe.

Lengthy, healthy hair has long been associated with youth and femininity. So have certain clothes, bare skin and sexuality. And historically, women’s appearance has been scrutinized in ways men’s simply hasn’t. Perhaps that’s why so many of the old rules seem to point in the same direction:

Tone it down.

Don’t wear that anymore.

Don’t show that anymore.

Don’t draw quite so much attention to yourself.

You’ve had your turn.

And a lot of women are saying: No, thanks. Not because we’re desperately trying to look 25, but because we’ve stopped accepting the idea that becoming older requires becoming less visible.

I’m Not Trying to Look 30

This is the distinction that matters to me. Breaking the rules doesn’t mean pretending age doesn’t exist. My body has changed. My face has changed. My hair has changed. What I find comfortable has changed. My taste has changed too.

There are things I wore at 25 that I wouldn’t dream of putting on now—not because I’m forbidden from wearing them, but because I don’t want to. That’s a very different thing.

I’m not interested in walking into a store and buying whatever a 22-year-old on TikTok tells me everyone is wearing. But neither am I interested in walking into another store and asking where they’ve hidden the “appropriate for women over 50” section.

I don’t want to dress younger, I want to dress like myself now.

And perhaps that’s one of the unexpected pleasures of getting older. You get better at knowing the difference.

Maybe This Is What Getting Older Is Supposed to Look Like

What a difference a decade makes.

At 40, I was already preparing myself to cut off my hair at 50 because I thought that’s simply what women did. At 52, I’m wondering why on earth I ever believed I had to.

I see women my age—and much older—wearing their hair long, embracing beautiful grey, colouring it pink, wearing bikinis, leather, heels, sneakers, miniskirts, fabulous coats, no makeup, lots of makeup and pretty much everything in between.

And I love it.

Not because I necessarily want to wear all of those things myself, but because they’ve decided for themselves.

Style should be a form of self-expression, not evidence that we’ve learned to behave appropriately for our age.

I’ve spent five decades becoming the person I am. I’m certainly not interested in handing over the wardrobe decisions now. So I’ll ask you: what rule did you absorb without questioning it? And are you still following it?

I’ll Take Vitality, Thanks

At 52, I’m firmer and more decisive about a lot of things. I’m more interested in doing what I love. I’m more comfortable with who I’ve become. And I appreciate the journey that got me here far more than I did while I was in the middle of it.

So no, I’m not chasing youth. But am I chasing vitality? Sexuality? Freedom of choice and expression? Owning my body and feeling good about myself at any age?

Well, yes I am.

Thank you very much.

And I’m keeping the long hair.