PRiME Women care about their looks and want to look their best. We are fashion-forward dressers without being avant-garde. We want to know how to dress our best for the bodies we have.
To help our readers look and feel their best, we scoured the web and found five of the best fashion blogs for women over 50. While they hail from all over America and come from all walks of life, they all share a love for 50+ style and understand what women want to read in over 50 fashion blogs.
Beth Djalali
Style at a Certain Age
Beth Djalali celebrates her seventh blogiversary in March 2021 with a monthly reach of about 110,000 viewers on her many social media platforms. She was just featured in a Chico’s campaign, in which she was photographed wearing their clothes and interviewed about her style and thoughts about fashion over 50. Not bad for a woman who had never written a blog before.
But jumping into new ventures is how Djalali has spent most of her life, moving 15 times and living everywhere from Guam to China to Vietnam. Recently she and her husband moved from California to Georgia.
Djalali started Style at a Certain Age on Tumblr. “I’m not very tech-savvy,” she says, “and it’s super easy to use.” The idea was to post an outfit a day. It didn’t take long before Style at a Certain Age was identified as a trending blog on Tumblr. “That was pretty exciting,” she says.
It also forced her to take things more seriously. “I never intended to have a big following,” Djalali says. “Then, when that transpired, I thought ‘Oh I need to up my game a bit.’”
A stay-at-home mom for many years, Djalali was living in Shanghai when she turned 50. “I decided I was going to write a book,” she says, “which is pretty funny.” Except she wrote it and got an agent in New York who told her she needed some kind of social media presence. “That planted a seed. I had to have a platform.”
Fast-forward a few years. “It dawned on me that people always commented on my outfits,” she says. “A lightbulb went on. I can post an outfit of the day.” Now everyone from Talbots and J. Jill is interested in working with her.
Beth Djalali’s Top Three Fashion over 50 style tips:
- Have fun! It’s okay to make a fashion mistake. Sometimes, the only way to grow and develop your own style is by trial and error. Be kind to yourself and others, as there are no hard and fast rules these days. Your Don’t may be your BFF’s Do.
- The best way to keep your look modern and fresh is by anchoring the look with classic pieces. Then bring a trend or two with your accessories. It’s a balancing act, but this is how you keep your look updated and polished. And it’s impossible to look stuffy in bright colors!
- Invest in a great haircut! It’s your best accessory.
Tania Stephens
50 Is Not Old
Writing a fashion blog for women over 50 wasn’t on Tania Stephens’ radar. Her sister, an author, kept pushing her to do it. “I kept putting her off,” Stephens says. “She kept on and on as little sisters do.”
Finally, Stephens gave it a try. “I spent the weekend on YouTube learning how to do WordPress [a popular blogging platform],” she says. “I didn’t think anyone would ever find the blog.”
Stephens was obviously wrong. She started blogging in September 2015 and last month had 220,000 page views.
She originally imagined the blog as a lookbook of sorts for herself. “Your outfits look different when you see them in print,” she says, noting she posts an outfit every day. “I thought I could look and see what I did [with a particular outfit] and if I looked good, I’ll do that again.”
It’s a strategy that apparently resonates. “The comments are that I seem real,” Stephens says. “I’m not a size 0 or 2. People look at the blog and say, ‘I look like her. She has wrinkles.’ I’ve got weight. Plus I don’t take myself too seriously. I’ve taken photos of myself in the beauty salon with foil in my hair.”
Many over 50 fashion blogs for women feature bloggers who are, Stephens says, “drop-dead gorgeous. The reality is most of us can’t do that.”
Tania Stephens’ Top Three Fashion over 50 style tips:
- Women don’t want clothing to touch them. They think if it doesn’t touch them it doesn’t show their bumps and rolls. Actually, it makes you look bigger. Clothes should fit you well.
- Color is a great thing for [older] women. We will fade into the walls if we don’t wear color. If it makes you happy, wear them.
- Stand in front of a mirror and take a picture every day with your phone. I’ve taken a photo and reviewed the picture and thought no way I’m wearing that. Looking in the mirror, the outfit looked fine, but not in the photo.
Jennifer Connolly
A Well Styled Life
Jennifer Connolly is a California-based Certified Image Consultant who initially started blogging to complement her work. While fashion blogs for women over 50 were fairly rare when she started hers four years ago, now the field is burgeoning, she says. “We’re the new fashion magazine for women our age,” Connolly says. “I started my blog to assist women online with free advice that I was charging my real-life clients. There’s nothing out there in print for our age. It’s logical for it to end up on the internet.”
Connolly describes her 50+ style as elegantly casual. “There’s a certain amount of drama to the way I dress, although that doesn’t always show on the blog,” she says. “Even if I’m wearing super casual jeans and a Target tee shirt I might add a vest and updated sandals.”
It’s a style that resonates with her readers. “Finally, a blogger who dresses like me” is a comment frequently found on her blog, Connolly says, noting she receives an average of 80,000 viewers monthly on her blog alone. (She reaches over 250,000 readers on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube)
Jennifer Connolly’s Top Three Fashion over 50 style tips:
- Buy what fits you right now. Don’t beat up your confidence by buying things you think will fit you in five or ten pounds. And pay no attention to the label. Cut the labels out. I own things size 2, 4, 6 and some things that are 12s.
- Finish off an outfit with at least one accessory. A lot of women don’t go that far. They put on a top and bottom and don’t add an accessory, and that keeps them from looking nicely dressed.
- Don’t try to be somebody you’re not. You should wear what you’re comfortable in. If you’re copying somebody’s style, that’s great if it feels good. If it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. Many women ignore their own intuition. Be honest and true to yourself.
Pamela Lutrell
Over 50 Feeling 40
Pam Lutrell credits the drivers’ license photo she took when she turned 50 for helping her to turn her life around. “I had let myself go in my 40s for many reasons,” she says. “I put myself at the bottom of the priority list. That picture got my attention.”
So she began a personal makeover. “I read lots of style and fashion books and completely made myself over,” Lutrell says. “I put myself at the top of my priority list.” She started with her hair, moved on to makeup and clothes. “It was important to accept myself where I was at the time, to address the body I had,” she says. “When I started doing that and learned how to look slimmer and techniques for how to slim your look down, then I got encouraged. That actually encouraged me to lose weight.” When Lutrell first started her makeover, she wore size 20 or 22 women’s. Now she’s a size 16 misses. “I’ve come a long way.”
In 2010, a friend prompted her to start a blog to help other women do the same. Soon after, in 2013, she also began writing as a fashion columnist for Midlife Boulevard. Today, she reaches 225,000 fans with her blog and social media channels.
Pam Lutrell’s Top Three Fashion over 50 style tips:
- Accept yourself. Accept yourself just as you are with every hair on your head, every wrinkle on your face, every pound you think shouldn’t be there.
- Understand who do you want to be right now. It’s a great time of life. We all have different lifestyles. I’m still working. Others are full-time grandmothers. Dress for your lifestyle. Decide what messages you want your clothing to say. When people see how you’re dressed, what do you want your clothes to say about you. I want to be known as intelligent and strong. I want the way I dress to reflect that.
- Don’t leave the house without looking at all sides of yourself in the [full-length] mirror. We tend to just throw clothing on and not look at it all sides. Fit is important and the way we look on all sides is important.
Susan Street
Susan after 60
Five years ago, Susan Street was in her mid-50s and in poor health. She was 50 pounds overweight. It was time to make a change. She stopped eating all processed foods and meat. Six months later, she was 45 pounds lighter and looking for a new wardrobe. “Nothing in my closet fit any more,” she says, “not even my shoes.”
Buying all new clothes is not, she says, as much fun as it sounds. “I bought the wrong things many times over,” Street says. “I went through two wardrobes before I settled on what reflected my personality and lifestyle.”
Her fashion blog for women over 50 was created specifically to help other women avoid the mistakes she made. “I thought other people might learn something from this,” she says. “You lose your way fashion-wise taking care of kids and aging parents. I thought maybe I could save people some steps if I shared what I learned.” Apparently, she was right: She has 22,000 followers on Facebook alone and her blog typically receives 260,000 views a month.
Street describes her 50+ style as modern and feminine with “a little rocker edge. It’s a little bit more sophisticated than I wore most of my life,” she says.
Susan Street’s Top Three Fashion over 50 style tips:
- Don’t dry to dress in what you think is appropriate for women your age, exclusively — [only] picking clothes based on what you think a woman should be wearing rather than what makes you happy. For example, I love a biker jacket with a tank top but I’m not going to show any cleavage. It’s still appropriate and it doesn’t make me look ridiculous. You can wear a similar [younger] style but pair in more sophisticated, elegant way.
- Dress for the occasion and the weather. You have to be comfortable in style and what fits you but also for where you’re going.
- Wear colors that are appropriate for you.
