Hurrah for Vivienne Westwood! And how true to argue that women in their 70s have a better sense of individual style. They do – if they bother to use it. Because that's the problem, isn't it? We're all too scared of embarrassment, ridicule or making a mistake when we should be learning by our mistakes and laughing them off. As the fabulous flame-haired one did when she made Her Majesty giggle by turning up to collect her OBE in 1992 demurely dressed but without knickers – not a problem in itself; it was the skirt-raising spin for the photographers that revealed all, in every sense.
We're spoon-fed our fashion these days. It's all made too easy for us. The rise and rise of the celebrity magazine and disposable fashion (another point vocally made by Dame Viv) means we don't have to think. We see something, we like it, we go and pick up a knock-off facsimile for next to nothing, wear it twice and then bin it – or hopefully recycle it via the charity shop. Our brains are set on "receive" and not on "create".
Where it should get interesting – post-babies, post-menopause, post-divorce, when shapes have changed from what we were used to – is when we simultaneously lose our confidence to try new things. On Woman's Hour on Monday a lengthy discussion on whether fashion was important and what constituted rules for the over-40s came up with "fashion is not important, looking stylish is". Well, that's half right, I suppose, but I still felt inclined to give the radio a Glasgow kiss. What a lazy, half-baked solution. Yes, be stylish but do it with some zing please. Let's stop boring everyone into a coma with the same old stuff. Empty your wardrobe and try everything on. Find out what works for you and the way you look now. Move on, for goodness sake.
The style police do not exist and there is no age limit on looking good. If you want to browse the rails in Topshop or Agent Provocateur then do it. No one will march you out for having cellulite.
The Invisible Woman blogs on style and the older woman at guardian.co.uk/fashion/series/vintage-years
