Calling the mutton monitors

By LINLEY BONIFACE

Rachel Hunter is the latest celebrity to be named and shamed by the mutton police. Put it away, ordered Kiwi stylist Stephanie Rumble, who accused Hunter of having a Fanta tan, overly blonde hair and cleavage that could put your eye out.

"At times, Rachel looks like mutton dressed as lamb . . . she needs to remember that she is closer to 40 than she is to 30, and subtlety and class are far more appealing than too much leg and cleavage," says Rumble, clearly a fan of the current trend for cloaking deeply bitchy comments in a caring, constructive, I'm- only-doing-this-for-your-own- good tone.

Nicky Watson, ditto. "She shows way too much cleavage most of the time and must feel cold due to lack of clothing." While I doubt Rumble is genuinely motivated by fears that Watson may be struck down by hypothermia, it is hard to deny that Watson's gargantuan breasts appear to have a mind of their own – not, perhaps, something you could say of Watson herself.

Hunter and Watson are the public faces of the question every woman will eventually have to find her own answer to: is it possible to age with any degree of dignity?

Should we defiantly continue to wear short skirts, strappy sandals, visible muffins and boob-highlighting tops into our 30s and 40s, or should we simply appear in public on our 35th birthday in a pair of elasticated trousers and a boxy pastel- coloured blazer as a flag of surrender?

As role models, celebrities are no help whatsoever.

Once, older women in the public eye were encouraged to cover up in various artful and sophisticated ways: now, women such as Elizabeth Hurley, Madonna, Cindy Crawford and Elle Macpherson lash themselves into skin-tight dresses and hoik their massive bazookas up so high that they appear to be attempting to wear them as iPods.

Trinny and Susannah may give reliable guidance on other parts of the body, but they cannot be trusted on the subject of the older breast. Their standard advice to every woman, regardless of age and physical condition, is to whip out the puppy-throttlers and display them like jellies on a plate.

Similarly, Gok Wan – whose unsettling resemblance to Victoria Beckham increases by the week – appears to believe keeping breasts under wraps rather than hauling them out for public scrutiny is an anti-woman crime on a par with female circumcision.

SO WHO can we go to for guidance? One British fashion writer suggests everyone over the age of 40 should appoint a "mutton monitor" to gently notify them when, for example, it is time to spurn tight-gig T-shirts and pass the rock-chick mantle on to younger women.

Websites, I've found, are of no help. "Over the age of 40, focus on 'statement' handbags rather than clothing," one suggests. The message behind this piece of advice is grimly defeatist: "I now am so disenfranchised from my physical appearance that I'd far rather you looked at this zany handbag than at any part of my body. If I get any saggier, I'll carry a portable TV." "Learn how to drape a scarf" is another tip best avoided. I have only worn a scarf once, on my wedding day – that's what comes of buying your wedding outfit the day before the wedding, half an hour before the shops shut – and it almost garrotted me after becoming looped around a chair leg. But maybe this is now considered a perfectly valid message for older women: if you're so wrinkly you want to cover up your cleavage rather than revealing it, voluntary euthanasia – death by scarf – may be a reasonable response.

Perhaps one of the reasons middle-aged women find it so difficult to know what to wear is because they so rarely see women like themselves in the mass media. I'm convinced the box office success of the movie Mamma Mia! can be explained largely by its feel-good factor: its cast is made up of women of all ages and sizes revelling in their bodies – and by that, I don't mean simply getting their tits out for other people's approval. In the current climate, the decision of Mamma Mia! co-star Julia Walters, age 58, to appear on screen in a mainstream Hollywood movie wearing unflattering leggings and a high-neck top is almost a revolutionary act.

- © Fairfax NZ News