It’s official – Clothes are better than expensive beauty procedures to help you shed years and shine!

It’s what I have always known….that clothes are a powerful beauty aid…. here’s me styling my model to prove the point when I got together with isme.com recently, to help with a landmark survey, which should put pay to exploitative cosmetic surgery businesses who want your money.

We selected six outfits  from the isme.com Savoir range, while another other six were taken from the wardrobes of everyday 50+ women. Gotta be honest we had great fun choosing the everyday looks we all see women wear and even borrowed some garments from those we know and love, to prove the point.

Next stop was conducting a carefully controlled visual test for 2,400 British adults who guessed the age of our 55-year-old, size 12 model pictured in different outfits. In each shot she had identical hair, makeup, lighting and posture. She was guessed to be in her mid to late forties when she was well styled, but the years were piled on taking her to over 60 when we dressed her down.

When you look at Debbie (left and above) snuggling up in the good old British Cardigan – a wardrobe staple for many women young and old – you can immediately see what I mean.

Clothes are powerful tools to shape your body and the perceptions of others. See how the proportions of the body are changed by garments that have less shape and structure. Debbie very gamely smiled her way through all the shots we did, but said that the feel and the look of the frumpy clothes made her feel a lot less confident about herself and her looks.

Absolute and conclusive proof then that good clothes make you feel confident and vital. When you feel great about yourself. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

Even more crucial, is the confirmation that expensive cosmetics and unkind invasive skin treatments are NOT NECESSARY. No health risks, no pain and trauma…it’s a no brainer.  Women everywhere can vote against the growing market for surgical body and face modification and enjoy a good old fashioned shopping trip thanks to isme.com

Of course it would help to see more imagery of older beautiful women in our media, which my campaign All Walks Beyond the Catwalk is currently helping to do.

For now, though, let’s content ourselves with findings that contradict popular ‘beauty,’ surgery press releases. Have fun shopping for clothes to flatter your unique beauty and stick two fingers up to the growing surgery market for women our age!

Don’t forget to help yourself to our free Ageless Style ebook to get you inspired and our free Body Shape ebooks for standard, tall, petite or curvy figures to help you choose the most flattering clothes for your body

Have a look at some pics from my shoot with isme.com  shot and decide for yourself the age of Debbie our model. Here she is doing block colour!

And how about a trench coat look? Crucial for all the wet weather this season, but which one will you chose?

And there is more! Fitted fashion to flatter the face

Interestingly, researchers discovered that not only did all participants believe the model was much younger-looking when wearing the correctly fitted and styled clothing, they were also more likely to base their age assessment on her face (65 per cent) than on the clothes themselves (31 per cent) – suggesting that style has a powerful subliminal effect on the appearance of physical features.

Indeed, when sporting on-trend skinny jeans and a short summer mac, three quarters (74 per cent) of respondents believed that the 55-year-old model had the face of a 47-year old. However, when the same model was dressed at the other end of the sartorial spectrum, in a loose polo shirt over boot-cut jeans, her average perceived age was 62 – adding on an unwanted 15 years almost instantly.

For more articles on being happy with you…look in my blog category: Forty Plus

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