Style as we age: "It was only in my 40s that I gained confidence in my style"

Part of a four-part series on how style changes with age

How does our fashion style change as we get older? With Joan Didion (80) posing for Celine, Italian grannies featuring in Dolce & Gabbana’s current ads and Helen Mirren starring in beauty and fashion campaigns, how mature women dress is suddenly in fashion focus. As we near the end of Bealtaine, the festival celebrating female creativity as we age, four Irish women from 52 to 80 discuss their style over the decades. In part one of this series, we hear from Anne Maher (52), Director or Ballet Ireland. 

In my teens and 20s I lived in jeans and sloppy jumpers, but most women come into their prime in their 40s because that’s when they really gain confidence and lose a lot of inhibitions and concerns about what others think.

I was a dancer and yet I had no confidence that I was an attractive person. It was only in my 40s that I did. It had nothing to do with body shape; I weighed half-nothing and yet I wouldn’t have had the confidence to wear anything fitted or any kind of revealing clothing.

In the dance world we tend to live in black, but I always urge women in a business capacity to wear colour, particularly in a sea of grey suits. After I retired, my clothes became my costumes because I no longer had access to a flamboyant world of dresses, tutus and tiaras, so it became important to express myself in my daily life through clothes and style.

I have good hair that grows like grass, but I cut it about seven years ago because I got fed up having to tie it up. it was in I love loud, flamboyant statement dresses – I don’t wear quiet ones – otherwise it’s jeans and sweaters.

As you get older it’s important to wear more structured clothing because, as your shape changes, you have to flatter it more with good tailoring. I love off-the-shoulder clothes; shoulders are one of the most beautiful and alluring parts of a woman’ s body.

I do not have a single shirt or blouse in my wardrobe. I hate them. I don’t know how to wear them. I much prefer sweaters.