Top 5 Style Tips On How to Dress Younger in Spring/Summer

This spring/summer season if you are of a certain seasoned age and want to know how to dress to look younger, this article will set you on your youthful way. Read more.

Spoiler Alert! As we age as women, dressing younger doesn’t have to mean reverting back to wearing the outfits you wore in your teens or as twenty-somethings. Rather when you’re 35 and above, in my opinion, it’s more about approaching your personal style armed with self-awareness and the confidence you’ve gathered over the years.

I identify with older style mavens like Trinny Woodall, Roz Kaur, and Carla Rockmore who all bring a unique sense of pizzazz to their style. In my middle-aged years, I’ve approached my style and beauty choices with a youthful and experimental spirit.

With this article, in no way am I encouraging all women to approach the ageing process by dressing younger. Rather, this article is catered to older women who for whatever reason, are interested in wearing clothes that give them a youthful appeal.

Based on my personal taste and general observations I’ve put together some key tips on how to dress younger this spring/summer season. Like a buffet, I advise you to pick and choose what tips best cater to your personality, personal style, and lifestyle.

Dress Younger Tip 1 – Take Sartorial (stylish) Risks

Personal style is about how one puts an outfit together. It’s an attitude. For many, growing older is a sign to ‘play it safe’ or ‘tone it down’. But for some of us, ageing gives us full licence to have fun with fashion. Having gone through the body hang ups of our teenage and twenty-something years, we are happy to come out the other end feeling less concerned with what people think of us. We want to be kinder to ourselves. So if you want to dress younger this spring/summer, try taking stylish risks. Put pieces together that don’t typically go together, clash your prints, wear ‘look-at-me’ accessories or rock interesting silhouettes.

If you want to dress younger, another way to go about it includes having an eclectic approach and letting your personality shine through your garments.

I’m with Celebrity Stylist, Madison Guest who said, “Just as it’s important to take risks in your personal life, it’s very important to take risks in your fashion. It keeps you from feeling stale and stifled and may actually result in your falling in love with something you never thought you could.”

Dress Younger Tip 2 – Make Colourful Choices

What is it about a colourful outfit that radiates vitality and youth? To put this tip into full effect, you’ll need to know the bright colours that work well with your skin tone. Once you’ve identified that – you can go full ham.

With spring being in full swing, now is the opportune time to swap your darker and heavier clothing for lighter and more colourful pieces. According to Today Show’s stylist, Orla Diffily there isn’t a universal flattering colour for everyone as it all depends on your skin tone, hair colour, and age. She added that, “when you are wearing a colour that suits you it has the power to lift your complexion by reflecting flattering light onto your face making you look younger and define (or minimise) your body shape making you look slimmer.”

When asked what colours make women look younger in general, Diffily listed dusky pinks and pale lilacs. Who What Wear added turquoise, red-violet, and periwinkle amongst their list of shades that can turn back the clock.

For all you #AllBlackEverything lovers out there, just remember that according to Woman & Home, “Black not only washes us out, but emphasises wrinkles and dark shadows.” Ouch!

Dress Younger Tip 3 – Don’t Loose Your Sexy

A patriarchal society has meant that many older women are made to feel that as they age, their sexuality should fade into the background. I for one do not advocate the ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ mantra, however, I’m all about women who want to dress to look younger by showcasing their best assets in a stylish manner.

The key here is striking a balance. For example, if I wear something revealing or miniscule on my top half like a bandeau top, then I’ll contrast it with a maxi or midi-skirt. In my experience, this is a skill that gets better with age and really shows that the key way to dressing younger, is not – in fact – trying to recapture your yester years. If you were like me, when you were younger, you approached your sexuality in a basic and obvious way (to put it bluntly). That is you dressed up according to what you thought boys would consider sexy.

Personally, as I’ve aged, the big difference is I dress for myself more and more. That to me is sexy.

Speaking of sexy, if you want to go down this road to look younger, it doesn’t have to mean wearing revealing garments. There’s a certain power and sensuality I feel as a woman by hinting at what lies beneath (so to speak) without actually showing it. For instance, you can  highlight your silhouette by adorning it with smooth-to-touch fabrics like lace, leather or silk.

Dress Younger Tip 4 – wErk Denim

Now don’t get me wrong ‘denim worn wrong’ can and will pile on the years but when it’s done right, it can do quite the reverse! That’s why when you go to Mr Google to research how to dress to look younger, you see that denim always makes the ‘Got-to-Have’ list. Now here’s the thing, I haven’t worn a pair of jeans since I was in my twenties which was quite some time ago. As a fabric, there is a lot I really like about denim – how it comes in so many shades, how it can be reworked and customised, those 90s Levi’s denim jean ads…

Anywho, that’s why this knee-length denim dress is one of my favourite recent purchases. Denim comes in so many assorted forms that it’s possible to find the right style for you. Maybe I’m being prejudice, but I do tend to think that denim with a stone-wash hue or lighter shade tends to make women look younger as opposed to the darker variety – but to each their own.

Dress Younger Tip 5 – Beauty Choices Play a Part

I am not a beauty expert by any means. But I can tell you that if fashion is the painting, then beauty is the frame that sets off the entire piece. No matter how fabulous your piece of art is, if your frame looks dated, worn-out or mismatched – then erm, it’s all over.

If you’ve followed my blog through the years you’ll have witnessed my journey from corn rows to weaves to braids to…well how it is now. While I’ve chosen to bask in my middle-aged years with a TWA, that may not be your hairstyle of choice. If you are looking for a new and fresh look that makes you look your youthful best, I advise discussing things with your trusted hair stylist. If you haven’t got one, then start looking for one. One way to go about this is to ask people whose hairstyles you like for their hair stylist.

For your makeup regime, it’s all well and good for me to encourage you to wear lip colours in bright shades but some of you may need some more assistance in this area. So I’d advise speaking to the beauty cosmetic assistants who work for your favourite makeup brands. See which ones you can strike a rapour with and ask them to give you a makeover. If you like it, take some tips with regard to which products and techniques you can apply to shake up your beauty regime.

If you are interested in building your very own glam team, it will take research, patience, trial-and-error, but you will get there. I mean it took me about 9 years in Berlin before I got a hair stylist that I can trust!

And now over to you, how do you dress younger in spring/summer? How do you approach style to stay true to yourself as you’ve grown older?

Until soon,

Bisous