New season, new attitude- on aging, status dressing and learning to feel “worth it” after having kids.

I’m probably not the only person to be feeling like money’s been slipping through my fingers like wine over the summer holidays. Our last hurrah, to Ascot’s festival of food and drink  last Friday was an exercise in throwing good money after bad, ending up as we did, only £5 up on the day, excluding food (extortion) drink (necessary) and tickets. And yet, despite a few grumps getting the kids dressed up for a change (Jonah wore a pair of my brogues since he had to wear shoes, and has only trainers for school) we had a lovely, if rather sugar- and alcohol-fuelled day; one that has me intending on to do Dry-tember for much of the rest of the month.

It’s been a rare thing for me to complain of too much fun over the last few years -by which I don’t mean stressdulging too often, but that I genuinely feel replete with nice times and pleasant occasions. But if all work and no play makes Jill an alcoholic, getting a better balance off good times v bad means I can lay aside my pleasure-deprived vices and take the time instead to care for myself, now time on my own is no longer at a premium, and money squandered on frivolity does not mean cutting back on all but essentials.

It means doing exercise or getting my nails did does not feel like just another chore, for all having my hair done regularly is increasingly a necessity. But, while my vanity has previously taken a backseat to getting through the days, it’s no longer admiration I seek for being anything more than presentable, it’s status.

The problem with having something of a doll face, however careworn it may be getting – is that it can feel hard to be taken seriously.  In combination with a body in slightly shopsoiled condition, the result is no-one pays you slightest attention (that is, once you’re no longer quite so casually fuckable). On the plus side, aging might mean you become less of a threat, which can be less wearing – but then, intimidation has its uses, especially if your natural inclination is to be a people pleaser. 

I may have decided botox and fillers can wait for another lifetime – though I’m necking collagen tablets and wild yam in an attempt to smooth the ravages of twenty years’ unsettled hormones. It’s a problem I’ve already articulated about my knees. The skin on them is going, while my hipbones are becoming insistently muffled and what tan I have is piebald around my eyes. With these cheap shots of aging, I must muster what dignity I can with effective makeup, well-cut clothes and status shoes. Because one of the worst bits of getting older is the toll it’s taking on my condidence, and others’ perception of me.

Having nice things may never made anyone more likeable. But looking well dressed sure as hell means I’m taken more seriously. These days, put me in flats and one of the cheap and cheerful dresses I brought down Roman Road at times of financial strife that now sit too snug on my midriff for comfort, and I feel about as influential as a dowdy 12-year-old, which is how I still appear without the slap. But put me in killer heels and power jewellry, and suddenly I’m getting listened to, which, in my largely female-dominated workplace feels like a revelation.

It’s sad that female power is still so allied to looks, even as I make the long dark stumble over the hill. But one glance at Theresa May’s chain-mail necklaces and safari heels demonstrates that clothes are both armour and arsenal for a woman of a certain age, while no amount of fading natural graces can do Kate Moss any favours when she’s still falling out of a nightclub with a man half her age wearing a fur coat and a fishnet bodystocking.

It’s time to fix up, look sharp. And it’s not just how I look. How I behave feels under more scrutiny too as I get older. Increasingly, I feel the gaze of pity if I have one glass too many at a social occasion, and my e-cigarette habit is no longer a sign of rebellious glamour (was it ever, as a poor substitute for the illicit thrill of my favoured de luxe cancer sticks Vogues?) but rather a tragic affliction. And I don’t believe for a moment it’s not killing me less than the Vogues will. But perhaps life is no longer so bad as to need to seek suicide by the back door?

For too long, I have used my children (and my parents for that matter) as an excuse for personal failure and foibles – my nothing much career and any-excuse-to-let-my-hair-down attitude are wearing a little thin, and as summer turns to autumn in more ways than one, I feel a sense of back-to-school resolution setting in.

Old habits are being discarded one by one, just as the polyester frocks that passed muster when I was a sleep and wage-deprived slip of a thirty-something no longer cut it now I’m half a decade on. Now I’m more secure in myself and in my work, I’m indulging in non- essential luxuries: – blush coloured cashmere, non-nylon camisoles, pointy kitten heels, fine gold jewellery, that always come with the same justification: if you buy that, you’ll be taken more seriously. It’s the vice the fashion industry has on women over 30; the almost justification for The Pool’s pseudo feminism and its weekly summons to shop.

But these days, it feels like looking like I mean business is at least half the battle. if you can’t be beautiful at 35, then be rich, and if you can be rich, at least be sophisticated. A good pair of shoes, regular haircuts, polished fingernails and trousers that don’t cut in are no longer vanity’s luxuries but weapons with which I can go out and conquer a world in which status counts for everything. 

Little gilded touches, like the difference from bottle to foils, may be subtle, but make all the difference to how you feel – and how, sadly, you’re treated by the world. It’s a confidence boost that, having had one’s ego, not to mention wants, even needs, eclipsed by creating two people, it has often felt hard to justify.  

Now, with opportunities, rather than my figure blossoming, I finally have a chance to make something more of myself. So, while I’ve had my fun this summer, I want to sharpen up and set an example to my children- strive for something better, start pleasing myself, and acting  more authoritative; less overstretched and tetchy. The new season is here, you have to embrace it- even if it means you have to work harder to keep it all up.