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In the old days, women dressed differently and wore their hair differently once they passed forty or so. I think that really made a difference. Today, with less of this, the lines are blurred. But if you put the same woman in different clothes and put a short poodle perm on her head, and you would likely guess a 20-year difference between the two pictures.
I am fine with this, but it seems to really wig some people out not to have blaring evidence of a person's age. And it gives some of us the impression that we're some sort of Dorian Gray fountain of youth anomaly. We're not - we, the over 40s, are simply the first generation of over 40s not to signal our age with our clothing, hair, glasses and mannerisms, and it confuses everybody.
Probably has to do with the more confined gender roles in those days. Women were expected to be "mother" by their 40s. If they weren't, something was wrong.
Those pics remind me of my grandmother's friends back in the day. Looking at my grandma's old albums... it was kind of an overnight change almost by the time she hit her mid 40s. In her 20s and 30s she was fashionably dressed by the standards of the time... then BOOM! About the time my dad & uncle were around 10 & 13 years old, she changed her style to look like a "young" old lady. After that she basically just got more grey and more wrinkles until she died decades later.
Most of those women look over 55 and a few overweight. 60's fashion was for young people with Twiggy and the swinging 60's mini skirts, PVC coats and boots etc. Women over 55 were left behind in the fashion scene, crimpolene dresses, stilleto heels probably still wearing stockings instead of panty hose.
Today the over 50's have more choice of clothing to suit their shape and size and lifestyle more pants around different lengths.
Those photos make me wonder what the definition of "middle age" was back then. Those women look like they're in their 50's and 60's, mostly. Most have grey hair, so it's unlikely they're in their 40's. The definition of "middle age" at that time was 40-60, and 60+ was "old age". Nowadays, so many people are living longer and are active longer, that a new term has been coined for the 90+ crowd: "old old age". But those photos look like they're skewing "middle age" to 50-70 years old.
The photos also look like they were taken mostly in the Mid-West: the big poofy hair-do's that some of the women have, plus the obesity are factors that indicate a more conservative society and a certain diet. Most of my female relatives of older generations stayed relatively slim, even without exercising much. They watched their diet and took hormones after menopause, except for the oldest generation; great-grandmother & her sisters. We have photo albums going way back.
I think with some of those women it's the severe hairstyles. The ones with more natural hair look younger. And you could make almost anyone look old if you sat them in front of fake paneled walls with 1960s furniture around them. There are a few who look okay--they have natural looking hair, not tightly permed or poufed. They don't have bright lipstick, harsh makeup or dowdy dresses either.
I agree with others who have said this article is useless without ages. Are these women 40 or 60? Big difference.
I think the bolded items are the biggest factors - almost all the women have hairstyles that expose their entire forehead, which is a fairly severe look and not as common today. And although most of them are wearing lipstick, several don't appear to be wearing any foundation (except for the pseudo-ghost) to even out their complexions, which is a key component of looking young(er), and those two things emphasize each other.
As one of the commenters in the original article said, it would be interesting if we could see the corresponding men too.
There is no way that the woman in the next to last picture is "middle aged". She looks 70 at least.
I think most women today look better at 45 than women did in the 60's as long as they are healthy. The styles back then were awful and made everyone look so matronly. The only people I know who still dress like that are over 80.
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