Fashion

Style as we age: "What I wear says that I am me and not a stereotype"

"I was pregnant in the 1960s, but I got into style again after three babies, making my own clothes and putting a dash in them"

Tue May 26 2015 - 14:00

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 two of this series, we hear from 

Esme Lewis (80), artist, Studio 10, Imma

My mother used to make my clothes because we had no money. She made my wedding dress and all my children’s clothes. I could dress myself with very little. When I got married I had my wedding dress, my summer dress and my winter dress all from the same pattern. The wedding dress was in broderie anglaise and I adapted it into a summer dress. Everything you had you made yourself.

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I was pregnant in the 1960s, but I got into style again after three babies, making my own clothes and putting a dash in them. I love bright colours. I made clothes from scraps of material, remaking or renovating. I made all my dresses when I was pregnant and all my children’s clothes without a sewing machine.

In 1983 I had cancer, and I am lucky because I am still me and am happy, although I have been separated since 1987. I used to wear green, red, blue and turquoise, and I loved emerald green, pink and bright colours, but suddenly in 1987 I went through a phase of lilac, mauve and purple. I remember meeting [jazz violinist] Stéphane Grappelli when I worked in the Theatre Royal and the first thing he said when he saw my purple was, “Healing?”

I put green on a couple of weeks ago and all day there was something wrong with me. I had to take it off; somehow it affected me that day. I would never wear black and I dislike anoraks and raincoats. I dislike raincoats intensely.

My style has evolved. I have always wanted to be myself; what I wear says that I am me and not a stereotype. Today I am assembled in layers.