03.15.11

Anthropologie and Age

In the process of doing some much MUCH needed cleaning after a bout of crazy flu in the Hatchett casa, I found something that arrested my attention under one of the stacks piling up at our front door: the march Anthropologie catalogue. Of course, cleaning was at that point officially on hold.

I could go on about the surprising and refreshing earthy carmels and rusts mixed with jewel tones here at the beginning of March, the layout of the whole magazine exuding such utter confidence that you’ll love the products so much you won’t mind seeking out information on them, and therefore no need to adulterate the  artful pages  with inconsequential details like prices. The experience of beauty reigns supreme.

Something about seeing the 40 something year old man on the right jarred me out of Anthropologie rapture. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great looking 40 something year old guy, beautiful in his own right. But I realized that every single woman pictured in that catalogue looked to be not older than 30, max. And I remembered hearing from a friend and Anthro. employee about the age of their target demographic: women in their 30s-50s.

I also thought of the reaction that a friend of mine in her early 40s gave when a group of ladies roughly 10 years younger expressed shock that she was 40: pure ecstasy. Can you imagine a typical man being so utterly thrilled by the observation that he looked younger, or better yet, a group of men falling out of their chairs in shock that one of their comrades was older, but still had such luminescent skin and soft, touchable hair?

So I mused with this catalogue in hand: evidently we, women, are often okay with the idea of our partners aging, but when it comes to ourselves….not so much. How can we change this? How can we, as a culture of women, embrace the timeline of our lives at every stage? How can we, as creative professionals, show the world the inherent beauty of such an embrace?

Comments (4)

  1. i love how quickly you read visual clues. i haven’t seen the catalogue yet. did i stop receiving them? but im anxious now to go pick up a copy.
    its funny too cuz i was just pondering this over the weekend with my husband (12 years my senior).. how at 34 i feel so old yet when i look at him, i think he just gets more handsome with age. how women abhor the gray but tend to think graying men are sexy. (well, i know i do)
    maybe we can embrace our gray. embrace bodies that are slowing.
    i don’t know about you but it is a daily struggle for me.

    Comment by heather — March 16, 2011 @ 12:41 am

  2. Oh, totally, I feel that struggle too. And it’s hard because there are legitimate losses associated with aging. There is certainly a power and freedom to youth; but the older I get, I don’t want to just see those things diminish without acknowledging and celebrating the different kind of power that comes with aging well: one marked with greater confidence and focus that comes with a more acute sense of identity. I feel a little ridiculous typing that because I have SO MUCH more to learn in this arena, but when I remember where I was at 20 in that respect, I can appreciate where age has brought me.

    Thank you for sharing your story and thoughts here! I was super eager to hear if this resonated with any one else when I shared it.

    Comment by betty — March 16, 2011 @ 8:33 am

  3. oh, dear. I feel that I have a lot to say about this. I’ll try not to hijack your thoughts too much, but I was just in Anthro on Saturday and have a lot bouncing around my head this morning.

    At 30, I’m starting to feel a bit too old for many of the clothes in the shop. They feel so…costume. Maybe because the store I was in (a smaller location) carried a lot of early 70’s looks. Not inspired by the 70’s; many of the dress and pants particularly looked like finds in the most well-preserved thrift store – from the prints to the fabrics. Putting them on just felt silly.

    Back to the picture and your analysis – perhaps it’s because I’m prepping for vacation, but this image seems geared toward the resort crowd. Sugar daddy and his little wife are jetting off someone fancy. I mean, look at the lighting behind the woman and her pose – she’s styled like such an innocent, not a thought in her head. Such a pretty doll. While he’s reading the Sunday Times. This really rubs me the wrong way.

    On yet another tangent…I do feel more beautiful now than ever before in my life. But I recently looked at some pictures from just 2-3 years ago, and it’s shocking how suddenly my face has aged. Not wrinkled and saggy, thank god, but different. I used to have the face of a girl, now I look like a woman.

    Comment by Brigitte — March 16, 2011 @ 10:51 am

  4. Interesting take on current anthropologie clothes. Sounds like they fit too solidly in just one era…particularly the 70s for you (which I did also note the 70s inspiration in the catalogue, especially via the color palette). There was something about the bold shift out of sugary colors in design trends currently I really liked (even though I also like sugar)….in a grow your own food and then grind it into dye for an expression of noncommercial beauty in the form of a painting on homemade paper that your friends in your alternative community helped you make (but it was not one of the weird religious ones the ended in mass suicide from the 70s or maybe that was the early 80s?) Anyway, utopia. I still fantasize about it sometimes :)

    But back on topic: to be totally fair, the two images about were not side by side in the magazine. But all the women models were roughly in the same age range, and the man pictured was the only male model in the catalogue. He was in the “shelter” section, often paired with a little girl. The section with the female models (titled “sugar”, strangely), did have an air of being on holiday, palm fronds and everything.

    And yay for feeling more beautiful than ever! What a fantastic place to be! And regarding wrinkles and sags, one of the sweetest things Sam ever said to me was when I was stressed and sporting the worry line between my eye brow; he let me know that I was gonna make that line stay if I kept worrying…instead he wanted me to work on the wrinkles that form around your mouth with excessive smiling and laughter.

    Comment by betty — March 16, 2011 @ 2:23 pm