Older men don't have 'changing room moment' as women: Study

Women who are ageing feel averse to certain clothes and colours in their wardrobe and eliminate them realising that they were now "too young" for them. However, men do not feel so, finds a study.

The findings showed that men who age do not face the same "changing room moment" as women, when they look in the mirror wearing clothing they would have worn when young.

They remain comfortable in the outfits they had worn earlier in their lives, and some even wanted to expand their wardrobes and add more colour and variety.

For instance, those from "creative" industries continued to dress in a stylish, fashionable manner while others had a smart-casual style, mixing blazers with trousers and ties and shirts as they wanted.

"It is clear men have a different relationship to dress from women, and the research shows that this continues into later life," said Julia Twigg, Professor at the University of Kent.

However, they were repulsed by clothes such as hoodies, trainers and tight jeans as "too young" for them, called it "silly" and viewed it with contempt and something they would never want to wear.

They also had a strong negative reaction to pants with elastic waistbands.

It is because they thought these clothing would mark a clear end to masculinity and the onset of a decline of life.

This loss of masculinity in clothing choices was also related to the idea of wearing dirty or unkempt clothing, the researchers said.

Though "there is less in the way of age anxiety in their choices, but there are clearly issues that affect how they dress and how this changes as they get older," she noted.

For the research, published in the journal Ageing and Society, the team examined how men, aged between 58 and 85 from a variety of social backgrounds and sexual orientations, respond to fashion and clothing choices as they age.

Despite being confident in their dress choices, several men admitted that changes in body size that come with old age impacted their ability to dress as they wished, with some noting the ways clothes 'shrink in the wardrobe'.

--IANS

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