Too old for leopard-print skinny jeans?

It started with a pair of leopard-print skinny jeans. They’re pretty subtle, and I liked them a lot.

The leopard-print jeans -
mutton-mummy or yummy-mummy?

 

“Seriously?” asked DH, as I took them out of the shopping bag. “For who?”

“For me!” I said.

“Fashion victim,” mouthed DH, returning to SkyNews with a barely perceptible shake of his head. His ideal woman, as far as I can tell, would dress like Audrey Hepburn. Even on the school run.

Anyway, with the words “fashion victim” going round in my head, I started to doubt the jeans. Seriously, my next milestone birthday – although a long way off – will be 50. I’m a mother of two – should I really be wearing leopard-print skinnies? Would I just look like one of those sad mutton-dressed-as-lamb mums I sometimes see at school?  I decided at bedtime to take the jeans back the next day.

But after a fitful sleep, I woke in the morning feeling defiant. I tried them on one more time and I thought they looked fine. They fitted really well – not too low-rise, not too skinny, nice stretch in the fabric – so I decided to keep them.

And, to cement the decision, I wore them to a children’s party that morning. DH’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t say anything. I thought the party would be a good testing ground. But I needn’t have worried about looking like a fashion victim there: One of the mums was in over-the-knee boots, skin-tight jeans, a tight gold sweater and sunglasses – bear in mind that it was 10am on a Friday, inside a shopping mall, at a party for a four-year-old, and it was 30C outside. Honestly? She looked hot: The wrong type of hot.

But I digress. I wanted to see how the jeans went down in mummy-company.

“Mmm,” said my French friend. Well, I wasn’t expecting high praise from a French stylista.

“They look great,” said my friend G, not very enthusiastically. “I know a woman who’s nearly 50 who still wears leopard print.” (I have to add that G is still the young side of 40).

I must have looked crestfallen. “And she looks amazing!” added G, eagerly. Too little, too late, as they say. But I decided that I still liked the jeans. Even if I am now mutton-mummy.

And then DD arrived with DH and she, my little fashionista-in-training, she said:

“Wow, mummy! Nice jeans! They’re very flatteNing!”

Well, I suppose that’s something. At least she didn’t say “fattening.”

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