Casual is more youthful

                   

                (Ines has truly nailed casual, current, fantastic)

Dress more casual

I was reading a vintage magazine, 1960! would you believe? I love reading old magazines. Really old ones. An article on being youthful said that if you want to look younger, then dress more casually, rather than dressing up.

It makes sense, for sure. I knew instinctively that this was correct, and I had actually always thought so, too. But I had a wee think, a bit of a contemplate about it, as I wove through my day.

Each generation has a mode of dressing. And, it does seem that, in the main, each generation can get more casual. Looking back over the decades (those old magazines, again!), the 1980s were more dressing than the hippie 1970s, but overall, casual does seem to get less and less dressy as time progresses.

And, when we dress up, we can often dress up according to an earlier time, when we where younger. Anywhere from teens through to forties. A time when we felt young and vital. So, naturally, we try to duplicate that feeling through how we dressed up, at the time.

And, dressing up, was special. It was then, and it still is, now.

And in doing so, we, well, we age ourselves. I gave a talk a few years ago, where I knew that dress would be casual. So, I complied. Not too casual, because it was about presenting oneself, with colour. Within the casualness, I also had to look professional. I hope that I managed it.

I recall seeing a lovely lady, a bit older than most of the people there, who was wearing her new colour schemes and make-up, which she had gone to a colour stylist for. Fantastic. She was wearing new clothes. Which aged her. For they were what she may well have worn a couple of decades ago. They were also Just Too Dressy for the occasion.

And being overdressed in any situation, is, well, it's ageing. Sorry. But it is.

Why is casual more youthful?

And there are also psychological and visual reasons why casual is more youthful. Youthfulness has a lot to do with movement. If you can move well, you will look and feel younger and more vital. When we were young, we were often in casual clothes. And we were playing, and moving.

So, it's the association of casual dressing and movement that suggests youthfulness. But sometimes, we get it mixed up. And I really dislike it when I do it.

We can tend to overdress when we are being casual. In a way that reminds us, of our youth.