Feminine Without the Fussy Bits

After 40, most business and professional women want to cast off the girlish tendencies of their youth and show a stronger personality. Unless you have a very strong feminine element to your personality, you no longer want to wear the dainty floral patterns, frills galore or neckline or waistline bows. Most of us have passed the stage of experimenting with all of this.

In our desire to be seen as a strong and wise professional woman, it is easy to wear only classic styles and forget to be feminine. How do you tap into your femininity without being too fussy or too girlish?

Here are three smart dressing tips for you.

Feminine and Strong

Look for a business dress or suit in a strong or abstract floral pattern with a maximum of three to five colours. A strong pattern may be reflected in colour blocking that combines a floral pattern with a plain dark colour. An abstract may be a floral pattern where the flowers are large and have muted or blended edges. Choose this strong or abstract floral dress or suit in a simple modern classic style that fits or skims your body. This combination of pattern and style shows your womanly confidence and inner strength. Keep your accessories to a minimum and classically simple.

Feminine and Classic

Here we balance your feminine floral pattern with a solid colour on one half of your body. This is a classic way of combining two separate pieces of clothing. The easiest way to do this and not be fussy is to wear a black or dark-neutral coloured skirt or pants with a top or jacket in a floral pattern that includes some of the dark in it.

A more interesting feminine and classic look is to add the solid colour to the top half of your body. When dressing for a business or professional situation, look for a strong not dainty floral-patterned skirt that is in a modern, semi-fitted style. Wear your choice of skirt with a plain solid coloured top, a knit or a jacket.

A modern dressing tip for business women over 40 is to team an all-floral dress with a trench coat. Button it up or leave it open depending on how much femininity you want to express. A trench coat is a more modern look than the usual solid-coloured jacket worn over a floral dress.

Again keep your accessories simple and classic.

A Little Femininity

This is for those who want to show their softer side without compromising their strength. Here we limit your feminine dressing to an accessory only.

Look for an accessory in a simple, stylised flower shape eg a gold or silver necklace incorporating a flower outline, a leather cream or camel-coloured flower brooch or a scarf with some muted flowers dotted throughout the pattern. If flowers are definitely not your style, you might consider using colour as your way of being feminine but not fussy. You might consider adding your choice of accessory in a soft pink or a salmon pink colour. If you want feminine but not near your face, look for a feminine style, colour, pattern or feature on the shoes you wear.

Do Not Go Here: Avoid all floral, centre-buttoned, boxy, revere-collar blouses. Do not even consider even wearing them as an open jacket. This style will make you look old and feel dowdy.

The secret to all of feminine without the fussy bits is in keeping your feminine touches to a floral design or a feminine-coloured accessory and ignoring the fussy bows, frills, white lace etc.