What Older Women Want Advertisers to Know

(This article appeared previously on HuffingtonPost50.com.)

All women who are 50 or older know the shopping ordeal. We are willing. We’ve got the looks. We’ve got the money. What older women don’t have are the clothes that are clearly made for us.

Have you noticed that practically anything fashionable is worn by very thin, very young women in nearly all ads everywhere? So where are we — the women who dare to be older than 50 and who refuse to be invisible bystanders? Probably hiding in that empty closet that should be filled with great looking stuff to wear.

But here comes the good news for all the women who’ve had enough of this Game of Shame. You’re not alone! A new study by the London College of Fashion asked more than 500 women aged 40 to 89 about their views on fashion and beauty products aimed at their age group. Not surprisingly, nine out of 10 women feel ignored and don’t think they are represented at all. They demand to see a greater number of older models or celebrities in such ads.

Are you listening, all you designers in love with youth?

Well, thanks, Tommy! Weighty words, unfortunately not backed up by much action since he keeps on using very young models for clothes older women are supposed to wear.

So, here’s the question I have for the male designers: Is it ageism, sexism — or fear of your own age? I’m talking to you — Lagerfeld, Lauren, Klein and Kors — all old men.

But that doesn’t excuse the designing women who do the same. Jil Sander, Miuccia Prada, Diane von Furstenberg, Donna Karan, Eileen Fisher (yes, even her), Donatella Versace, are all women well over 60 who take their generation completely out of the picture. Don’t they like and trust themselves?

Miuccia Prada, the 67-year-old star-designer and rebellious spirit behind (and in front of) Prada preaches: “I hate the idea that you shouldn’t wear something just because you are a certain age.” Pradissimo! But does she actually follow up with her collections? Not really. But she adds a lot of very old typically Italian Mamas dressed in Prada to her amusing spreads in magazines. And in a way they steal the show. Amusing, but not us either!

Maybe it hasn’t reached public knowledge, but there’s more to older women than being shown cavorting around in white-haired senior groups or being stuck into ads for products with negative stereotypes of old age, like stair lifts or hearing aids.

So what does it take to make the designers and advertisement people understand that they are losing one of the largest and wealthiest groups of consumers ever, by pretending they don’t exist or are miraculously forever 21?

Here’s an idea: Repeat after me — just like in the fantastic movie classic Network where the entire duped TV audience rebels and yells: “We’ve had it! We’re mad, we’re not taking it anymore!”

It's time for the style industry to get real and pay attention to what we have to say.