Love Your Age

WD’s expert beauty and fashion tips will help you strut through every decade with confidence.

- Allie Holloway

Clinton Kelly’s Guide to DRESSING YOUR AGE

Let’s be honest—who says you have to? Our favorite style expert tells you what’s really important: feeling amazing in whatever you wear. On these pages, he shows you how.

INDULGE ME FOR A MINUTE AND picture this: We’re at the airport, and you recognize me from my decade of hosting What Not to Wear. Our flight is delayed, and we look at each other with annoyance and resignation. Because you seem like a lovely person, I ask if you want to grab a coffee. You do! Yay! We sit down, and I ask you about your style.

And you say, “At my age, I don’t care.” My head explodes. Girl, we need to talk. Maybe by “I don’t care” you mean

“I don’t care what people think of my clothes because I deliberately chose them and they serve my purposes and make me happy.” If so, I am thrilled for you. That’s exactly what clothes should be: tools to keep you from getting sunburned or arrested. They help you communicate some positive aspect of yourself to other people—I’m confident! I’m fun! I’m adulting and I’m nailing it!

Maybe by “I don’t care” you mean “I don’t care about fashion.” I’m cool with that too, because I don’t care too much about “fashion” either. I do, however, care about style. Here’s the difference: Fashion is the stuff designers offer for sale in any given season. Style is the stuff you choose to put on your body, based on all the fashion that is offered to you. Style is the plate you take from the fashion buffet. Just because some high-profile designer is serving up booty shorts (“Fashion!”) and people are all “Brilliant! Fabulous! Booty shorts are everything this season!” doesn’t mean you have to give a horse’s patootie about booty shorts.