Gen Zers Think You're Cringe

This morning, a PR email arrived in my freelance-writer inbox with the subject line “1 in 3 Gen Z believe people stop being hot at 40.” Lol.

This particular email seemed to be promoting a recent study, which polled Gen Zers on what they think about millennial’s sex and style lives. Why this study was conducted, I could not tell you! We have cancers to research, people. There is still not an easy way to get sunscreen on children, or to reliably send messages between iPhones and Androids. Priorities.

My niece sent me a picture she took of me and my daughter on the beach last week, summering it up. When I opened it I thought “No! I am much more attractive than this!”

It wasn’t a dig on my looks in the picture, it was literally just an observation that, at 41 and after decades of weird eating and body shit, I happen to think I am a total fox and only have some disappointment that even my niece’s brand new iPhone could not translate this fact into two dimensions. I don’t particular care what any generation thinks about whether or not I am hot.

I wrote a piece for Romper recently about finding my vanity in my forties, and I meant every word of it.

It’s not that I feel young again, it’s that I feel, finally, like myself. When I was in high school, I painstakingly picked out my outfit for the next day each night. I would sit in my cranberry-red room, talking to Mae or Jeannie, the cordless tucked under one ear and Portishead blasting on my boombox, while I painted my fingernails to match. Butter yellow to go with my shell-toe Adidas. Deep pink to match the accents on the sheer blue top I “borrowed” from my brother’s girlfriend for years.

Of course I am nostalgic for those nights – having the time and attention span to devote to decking myself out like a new bride each day. But if I really return to the feeling, it wasn’t luxury, it was fear. Of being judged and rejected. Of never, ever, being loved back. The effort was a cover, a wild scrambling for something to control. My ex’s best friend was rumored to have said back then, “What do you get when you slap Sarah Wheeler in the face? A handful of make-up.” It was true. And the make-up served as armor against the sentiments in that joke. If I was going to be slaughtered, I decided, at least it would be in my prettiest dress.

Since then, my relationship with my body, my self-image, and of course, with fashion, has charted a complex course. Trying to get pregnant forced me into therapy for my disordered eating and body image. Pregnancy and birth and postpartum forced me to get comfortable with not having much control over how I looked. And perimenopause, or the adjacent space my body currently inhabits, has forced me to ask, if there are no more hoops to jump through to prove myself as a woman, can I just have fun??

This last thought, of course, was a collective effort, thanks to so many wonderful women occupying my brain space. After my older sister had kids, probably before she was even 40, she was walking down the street one day when a man walked by her and whistled “Yeah!” he exclaimed, “You still got it!” Her response was, STILL???! But I don’t feel like I still got it. I feel like I got it. Maybe even for the first time.

This conversation I had recently on my podcast with the wonderful Angela Garbes made me feel even more in the feeling myself, and also made me purchase this ESPRIT vintage dress on Poshmark:

(It should be noted, my word processor does not think “perimenopause” is a word. So, obviously, we’ve still got work to do! But, at least we can look/feel good doing it :) )

When I get PR emails about aging, they are usually trying to sell something. Lotions, potions, botox, tummy-tucking bathing suits, miracle salves involving tallow (yech), oils that keep my hair from falling out. Just like it’s hard to disentangle a desire for a clean house from the oppressive societal expectations to be clean, it can feel impossible to tease apart what is fun and authentic about one’s vanity from the relentless consumerism all around us.

For that reason, I am wary of sharing my attempt, below, to give style advice — no, not advice, joy? Just talking about products, in a moment where our world’s obsession with stuff is literally killing us, feels a bit cringe. And yet, like so many daily paradoxes we are all living with, I do have shoes I prefer, and patterns that make me smile, and, as I’ve mentioned, deep, unabashed vanity.

So here is my reluctant style section! If you want to read the original article here, go for it!

OLD LADY WHO IS DOING IT FOR HERSELF STYLE GUIDE:

Look for shortcuts: Even though my kids are school-aged, I still have about 7 minutes to get ready in the morning. I find it easier when I can skip steps or double up with my routine, like with this concealer/sunscreen (this brand is also good, with a wider range of tones), this blush/lip stain (I am generally obsessed with Fenty, and these sneakers, the first I have found that you can really go sockless in without feeling gross)

Start a hat collection: It is true, your hair gets weirder with age. I’m taking it as an opportunity to get into baseball caps, which are having a very creative moment! I love the blue color of my newest one from Transit Books, and often turn to this black cap with a subtle cute message on it.

Go bold: I made an agreement with myself a few years ago that I would only buy clothes that were classic staples or made me feel like my outsides matched my insides (read: delighted!). I am a big sucker for the colorful prints of Brazilian brand Farm Rio, which has some great sales a few times a year, but I also find more affordable pieces on Poshmark (a friend just clued me into vintage ESPRIT, which is making a comeback). Just yesterday I added to my Farm Rio jumpsuit collection with a velvet short-sleeved piece I found at Buffalo Exchange for $30!

Buried in the findings of the PR study I mentioned is the stat that almost 75% of both Millennials AND Gen Zers think their best years are still ahead of them. Walking down the street in the heat with my ass hanging out, oblivious to what anyone of any age seems to think (my kids often tell me I am dressing inappropriately!), smiling like a goober, finally in love with myself, I’m inclined to agree.

Who else writes or talks about style in nuanced ways, holding in mind the daily desires to feel fabulous at the same time as they acknowledge the post-capitalist apocalypse??

Or, easier question, what makes you feel foxy these days??

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