Chic AF is a recurring column on Sudden Chic written by my mom, Karen Resta. Because she tells the best stories. Also, she has yellow hair. This is her inaugural piece.
How to be Chic AF at 59 Years Old
At 59 years old, I’ve been called many things, by many people. You know how that goes. If you don’t, then you may have been living your life as a stuffed animal, sitting on a bed with no expression in your eyes, making no mistakes and not talking very much.
My own life hasn’t been exactly conventional. I’ve been a throwaway/runaway at the age of 14, lived in Soho when there were only two places to eat and nowhere to buy expensive clothes, became a self-taught chef then later executive chef for Goldman Sachs partner’s dining, a VP at Goldman in the operations division, lived in Paris for a bit, married twice and divorced twice, have two amazing and wonderful children, lived in rural West Virginia for some years, became a writer, and moved back to New York City at the age of 56 years old.
A few days ago my daughter posted a photo of me on Instagram with the comment:
“happy national best friends day from me and my chic AF mom.”
So I decided to figure out why she would think that, so I could continue along the same path, being ever more chic af – actually to be chic af as possible. Admittedly there have been years when I didn’t try to be chic at all, because I already stood out enough in the places outside NYC where I was living. To try to be chic then would have invited scorn, and also I really hate it when people’s mouths literally drop open and they do that google-eyed stare only really done in places without any kind of diversity where there are also generally fairly low expectations of life and an active dislike of anything at all “different”.
??? happy national best friends day from me and my chic AF mom ✨
A photo posted by Kristen Bateman (@kristenvbateman) on
I’m thrilled to be back in NYC, a place that celebrates diversity more than any other place in the world, in fashion and in every other way. We speak more languages here than anywhere else, and that alone says it all.
Here are five ways to be chic af at 59 years old:
- Refuse to be invisible. You should already know what that means if you’re my age and a woman.
- Decide if you want to have gray or white in your hair, and if you do, work it. Don’t let it look like age is overtaking you, make it look like you’ve designed it to look that way. And if you want to color your hair, cut your hair, or grow your hair, don’t let anyone stop you. Your hair belongs to you, not to someone else’s ideas or opinions. If you want to let your hair go entirely its own way, turning whatever color it pleases and not shaping it into an attractive shape, that’s fine too, but that won’t gain anyone saying or thinking you’re chic as fuck at 59 years old. Unfortunately, the fact is that only works (sometimes, and rarely at that) for women much younger.
- Know what’s happening in fashion and beauty trends. Don’t be like the women we saw when we were younger who, when long straight hair was “in”, were still wearing permed bouffant flips, looking like aliens from a different age and time.
- Stay in relatively good physical condition, for more reasons than one. This doesn’t mean you have to have calves so developed from working out that they could kill someone with one swift kick, but physical sloppiness generally won’t be chic as fuck. There are exceptions to this, of course. If you’re the exception, brava to you!
- Remember Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise”. Still, we rise, if we dare to.
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