10 Style Mistakes That Age You - Nada Manley

It’s all too easy to prioritize other things over style. I totally get it. It’s only my priority because it’s my passion and my profession. But when life gets in the way, details get overlooked, and it’s these details that can make or break our look.

I say this as I sit here in an airport, about to board a flight home, a week late for a hair color appointment.

Staying on top of all the things is hard. And no one says we have to. But what we do want to do is recognize the items that might be undermining our best efforts and zapping our style. One of these might bother you more than another. For example, I do not feel cute or pulled together when the gray roots start showing or when my hair is frizzy, and it doesn’t matter what other people say. I know how those things make me feel, so I try to avoid them, when possible.

For you, it might mean a wrinkle-free outfit, or a flattering fit, or a little mascara, that makes the difference between feeling confident and feeling like less than your best.

I’ve compiled a list of 10 confidence-killers that might be detracting from your style. These are things that I’ve noticed because they have come up for me, for my clients, and in my private FB group.

I once had a fellow fashion expert friend completely upgrade a client’s WalMart wardrobe by altering everything so that it fit like couture. Great fit is truly the one thing that will transform your wardrobe and how you look and feel in your clothes more than any other single thing. And it allows you to get that transformation in a relatively affordable way. That’s why I’m obsessed with the Fashion Fit Formula. This system is the only one of its kind that will ensure you get the best and most flattering fit, custom to your body, through the use of a proprietary mathematical algorithm. Nothing else works like it. If you’re still not convinced that fit is that important, check out the before and after using the Fashion Fit Formula.

I don’t believe in balance in a lot of areas of life, to be honest. I don’t think there is such a thing as too much love or too much bread or too much reading. There is, however, a beauty in balance when it comes to style. It’s that delicate balance between not enough and too much, and it’s different for every woman. For an outfit to be truly chic, it has to harmonize with you, and that means it has to look like it belongs on you. This comes down to details like color and fit and style, but also whether the outfit harmonizes with our youthful energy or more mature energy.

I experienced this firsthand when I tried on a romper a few years ago with a youthful energy that made me look and feel older than I was. Could I have still worn the outfit? Of course. Would I have felt my best in it? Nope.

When the clothes we wear are in harmony with how we look, there is an elegance that everyone can see.

I’ve talked a lot about prints on my channel, so I’ll just briefly mention the worst offenders here. These are the bright splashy oversized prints that almost always make an appearance on bathing suits aimed at women of a certain age. A classic stripe or dot, or a solid, is always a better choice.

I believe the goal of style is to harmonize with our physical beauty, not follow some arbitrary rules. Holding onto preconceived and often dated ideas about what we should and shouldn’t wear after a certain age does not serve us. Modern celebs like Jennifer Aniston, Salma Hayek, Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren prove that age doesn’t mean an end to taking risks and having iconic style.

Next time you’re tempted to believe a “women over 40 shouldn’t wear….” rule, ask yourself if that is based on habit or outdated thinking, or based on what is going to flatter you best.

I believe that our body’s unique shape is a gift, and we can either choose to honor it and celebrate it by the way that we dress, or we can choose to disregard it, and choose clothes haphazardly. When we choose clothes that play up our body’s strengths,, we feel our most beautiful and we can stop fighting with our body and celebrate it instead.

That’s why I’m so passionate about my brand new Body Type Video Series. Check it out here for free!

You need less than you think you do. Let me say that again. You need less than you think you do. If you focus on filling the holes in your wardrobe with beautiful high-quality items, then you will find that you always have something to wear. But if you fall into the trap of always wanting something new, and feeling like you need 10 of a type of item for a season rather than 1-2, you’ll always be settling for poor quality and never feel like your most stylish self.

When we expect a round peg to fit into a square hole, or our Green bodies to look and feel fab in clothes designed for Blue women (if you don’t know what I mean, check out my body type series), then we put the blame on our bodies, and not on the clothes, where it belongs. Clothes can be wrong for us in a couple of different ways:

They can be the wrong silhouette (see “Not Honoring Your Shape”, above)
They can be the wrong size (one size definitely does NOT fit all)
They can be poorly made, and therefore a bad fit on everyone (this happens all the time!)

Remember my mantra: “It’s not you. It’s the clothes.”

There’s a lot I can say about makeup, and in beauty, as in fashion, extremes are rarely flattering, but choosing the wrong makeup colors is a mistake that I see all too often. Your makeup colors should harmonize with your coloring, so if you are deep, like me, your shades should be deep, but if you’re soft, you’ll find deep shades harsh and overpowering.

Here I am in a shade that doesn’t suit my natural color. I look washed out and tired.

Bad glasses are instantly aging, and worse, they downplay a feature that is a favorite of many of ours: our eyes. The right pair of glasses should bring something to your face in terms of style and flattery, and may even contribute to an overall look.

Toni from my VIP Facebook group demonstrates this so well with her statement specs.