Susan Zelouf explains how she is embracing feeling flawed and filter-free…
All products featured on thegloss.ie are selected by our editors. If you buy something through affiliate links on our site we may earn a commission.
Confession: I’m the vainest person I know. Caveat: vanity doesn’t necessarily equate to rocking enviable hair/make-up/couture or prêt-à-porter 24/7. Curious: one minute you’re four years old, running around the backyard barefoot and half naked, nicknamed Pants Down, the next you’re of a certain age, penning a memoir entitled Completely Fake and Extremely Flammable, based upon a lifetime of way too many hours spent curating your looks. Curveball: ageing alchemises self-consciousness into something else, a radical self-acceptance if you’re lucky and/or evolved, an embrace of how you look, what you think and who you are – don’t look now, Pants Down is back!
How freeing it is, playing with looks and frocks, lucky dipping from heaving racks jammed with secondhand designer resale finds in all sizes (damn the scale and its tyranny) in a boudoir more akin to a child’s dress-up box than a grown woman’s capsule wardrobe; I’ll edit tomorrow. Be be-lipsticked and Dita Von Teese’d – say yes to foundation and foundation garments or burn and rave at close of day, bare-faced à la cheeky Pamela Anderson, boldly going where no celeb has gone before. How we choose to map our later decades is no longer prescribed, though HRT may be. Do we lean into The Menopause, juiced by hormone cocktails, roots retouched every four to six weeks or do we go grey gracefully, accepting the exigences of The Change, choosing instead to luxuriate in The Power of the Crone, a force to be reckoned with, according to author Dr Clara Pinkola Estés, unbound and authentic?
“MY TRUE NATURE, BOTH UGLIER AND MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN I HAD EVER IMAGINED.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, writer, in Fragrant Palm Leaves
What a coup, to have the freedom to choose how to be in the world, notwithstanding constraints as tight as Spanx … navigating the work/life balance can be tricky, we get it! But compared to our grandmothers, we enjoy enviable opportunities, conveniences from washing machines to working from home, sovereignty in healthcare decisions and family planning and financial independence (note to self: buy less, save more). Perhaps our most consequential freedom is divorce, divorcing ourselves from our attachment to how we think we should look. Who says we need to act our age, to dress our age, to age into invisibility? Avec cosmetic tweakments (little and often) or unretouched, unapologetic and unfiltered, why not remove the guardrails and become bolder as we (inevitably) get older?
If Cher could turn back time, would she? In Fifty on Fifty: Wisdom, Inspiration and Reflections on Women’s Lives Well-Lived by Bonnie Miller Rubin, when asked “Don’t you think you’re too old to sing rock ‘n’ roll?” Cher replied, “You’d better check with Mick Jagger”. In an interview with As If magazine (www.asifmag.com), Julianne Moore discusses ageing in terms of spiritual growth: “How do we continue to challenge ourselves, to interest ourselves, learn new things, be more helpful to other people, be the person that your friends and family need or want? How do we continue to evolve? How do we navigate life to have even deeper experiences? That’s what ageing should be about.” Turning 78 hasn’t checked Dolly Parton’s self-deprecating takes on her own larger-than-life persona: “If something is bagging, dragging or sagging, I’ll tuck it, suck it or pluck it.” You could do worse than to do like Dolly: do not go gentle into that good nightclub!
1. I’M SHOPPING for fabulous fakes like this Black Elephant Head Bracelet. www.kennethjaylane.com.
2. I’M LOOKING the business in Balmain AW24.
3. I’M HOLDING the bag, as long as it’s a croc-embossed Kennedy 26 Tote. www.louisekennedy.com.
4. I’M ACCESSORISING with Stacked Rock earrings, Irish-made wearable art. www.capuletandmontague.ie.
5. I’M SPOTTING a trend: animal prints and older women rule the runway! Michael Kors AW24. Find leopard-print coats at www.lyst.com.
6. I’M READING Faking It, genius jewellery designer Kenneth Jay Lane’s memoir. www.abebooks.com.
7. I’M BORROWING Simone de Beauvoir’s still relevant classic The Coming of Age from my local library.
8. I’M EDITING my capsule wardrobe. Victoria Beckham glossy leather ecru pumps at www.net-a-porter.com.
9. I’M FOLLOWING @pamelaanderson on her #nomakeup journey (but I’d miss lipstick!)
10. I’M HORSING around in Gucci horsebit detail Jordaan suede loafers. www.mytheresa.com.
11. I’M WEARING nothing but Tom Ford. At Brown Thomas.
12. I’M WRAPPING up in Max Mara’s Rauche silk organza trench, in paprika. www.cettire.com/ie.
13. I’M BALANCING vulnerability and strength, inspired by Sandra Shashou’s stacked porcelain Tower sculptures. Enquiries at www.patrickdaviesca.com.
14. I’M LISTENING to Mary Pipher’s Women Rowing North on www.audiobookstore.com.