Age of Elegance BY ROBIN FANNON AND CARLTON REESE
The golden years are now for women of style, substance and beauty
T
he caricature of the aging female reveals many truths of society’s expectations and the low bar set for women who have supposedly crossed over from “youthful relevance” to “doddering eccentricity.” Gray hair knotted in a bun, horn-rimmed glasses, a creaky rocking chair and a mothball-scented floral muumuu: all ingredients of a stereotype too often succumbed to by the modern septuagenarian. The picture of old age tends to frighten us in our youth, constantly whispering its inevitable arrival and subsequent reduction of all we cherish physically and mentally. Old age is seen as the other bookend of life’s arc, always before us, reminding us of our mortality. I had not much contemplated the specter of a possible or pending caducity in my late years, but on my 60th birthday, I sud-
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| MAY 2022 | OCALAMAGAZINE.COM
denly became aware of all those fears and doubts. I noticed the wrinkles on my skin, the gray hues emerging through my blonde hair, and could detect that governor switch in my engine. I noticed other ladies in their 60s and 70s always “dressed to the fours” and trapped in a cyclical ritual of the trite and mundane. Here I was, on that very precipice, staring into the gaping maw of irrelevance, but I decided I would have none of it. For some, the denial of one’s own femininity, sensuality, style and vitality starts at age 50 and accelerates at a rapid pace henceforth. The aging process becomes a firing squad of one’s former self instead of a parole
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RALPH DEMILIO STYLING BY ROBIN FANNON HAIR & MAKEUP BY CPFREDERICKS FASHION BY DILLARD’S OCALA JEWELRY BY SHANNON ROTH COLLECTION SHOT ON LOCATION AT THE REILLY ARTS CENTER
