Old Or Weird

Feminism told us we’d earned our wrinkles and other signs of maturity, so why all the drastic cosmetic surgery? Kirstie Clements examines the new aesthetic and asks if it’s a club we’re all destined to join

- Kirstie Clements

During her one-woman show, Judith Lucy vs Men, the Australian comedian made a pithy observation about what the future looks like for women over 50. “It’s like you have two options,” she said. “You can look old—or weird.” Funny, yes, but it struck a chord with me. How do I want to age? Will it be gracefully, or will I go down fighting, forever resisting grey hair and gravity? My friends and I discuss it often: what options we have and how we want to look as we head into the next chapter of our lives. I am in my late 50s; I have friends in their 60s and 70s. We are aging pretty well: we’ve worn sunblock all our lives, we color our hair, watch our weight. A few of us have had botox or minor injectables. But our jawlines are softening, our lids starting to droop, our necks going. No one has any very obvious work done, but it seems as if we may be in the minority. Increasingly, the fashion seems to be for taut, immovable faces, sometimes misshapen with fillers, and the resultant overblown lips and squinty cat eyes. At its best, it might shave off about five years; at its worst, it can look like a genetic mutation.