Madonna has been a beacon of style throughout what feels like my entire life. I was eight when Madonna blasted into my world in 1984 and although my personal style was all home-cut bangs and bucked teeth, she oozed so much cool that my ‘tween brain could barely comprehend it.
There was lace and fish nets, and underwear as outerwear, cheap jewellery, and hair accessories galore. She made smoking cool, even though her hair had so much hairspray it was a fire hazard.
After watching Madonna traipsing around in a mini-wedding dress singing in slightly nasally tones I asked my mother what a virgin was and perhaps that was the beginning of my own understanding of sexuality.
Madonna oozed alternative style and her does-not-give-a-flying-hoo-ha attitude combined with her musical ability cemented her into the hearts, psyches and sound-tracks of our lives.
Madonna’s personal style has morphed, and grown, and changed over the years however it appears at 57 years old, the mother of four is having a return to the lace, weird butt-strap chaps and shock factors of yore.
I’m a huge believer in rocking your personal style, and I don’t believe that “dressing for your age” is really a thing. I believe you should dress for the personality you’re channelling that day, or you should dress fitting for an occasion whatever your interpretation may be, but as a woman who is rapidly approaching 40, I must also admit no longer dress as I did in my 20s.
This is partly because the frontless, backless evening straps I used to gad about in don’t sit quite the same on my low-slung breasts and poochy tummy. My kit has gone south, and I have allowed my style to mature with my body. Maybe if my body was as banging as Madonna’s I would still wear boob tubes.
But I doubt it.
Famous woman of style, Iris Apfel, is known as the “geriatric starlet” and she believes that great personal style is about knowing yourself, staying curious and maintaining a sense of humour.
“There’s no road map to style,” says Apfel. “It’s about self-expression and above all attitude.”
No matter what you wear, owning it (owning the attitude, it can still be a borrowed frock) is the most important thing, but the question has been laid on my desk – how old is too old to dress like Madonna?
Is having children the magic time to keep yourself nice?
Certainly the first years of child rearing is all about your boobs and them watching you in the bathroom so you can get away with wearing anything – or nothing – when childish eyes care not a damn about nudity.
Do older kids cringe at the thought of their mum’s near naked bodies in public? Hell, yes.
Should Madonna dress for her children’s comfort? Hell, no.
Can she be pissed when they are mortified at her cringeworthy choices… Also, no. No, she can’t.
Whether I like Madonna’s look or loathe it you have to give her points for not giving a flying watoozi what anyone thinks.
She has owned her style since “Like A Virgin” and made not one apology in her entire reign; not even when she made that “Sex” book and shocked the pants off the world with photographs of herself straddling a mirror gazing at her intimate anatomy.
I don’t believe that Madonna is too old for this, or any outfit, but I do wonder how people can still be shocked at her antics just because she is not ageing “gracefully”.
