What I want now are clothes that have a quiet confidence. Luckily, catwalks and front rows are full of them
When you are young and – well, I was going to say nubile, please don’t cancel me – you get a lot of attention for the way you look. This is not just about beauty, but about swagger, and the kind of clothes you wear. And this attention feels very much like power. By which I mean that attention brings with it many of the same privileges of power, by making life run more smoothly. Doors open for you. It is a bit like having great presence at the bar, but you get to leverage it for life in general rather than just when getting the pints in. You are the centre of attention and that is easy to confuse with thinking you are terrifically important.
Attention is not power, though, because it is turned off and on not by you, but by the people doing the looking. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so, therefore, is the power of it. At some point, people look away. As you get older, you get less attention for the way you look. This is a sweeping generalisation, obviously, and some people have a different experience, but I think most would recognise it as broadly true.
