My favourite women over 50, 60 and beyond

How they look fabulous, for any age

I have started following @LisaLuxeLooks on YouTube. She is so unashamedly who she is, wearing styles such as a slip dress, a sleeveless gown or a short skirt we have long been told woman past childbearing age should avoid at all costs. Lisa is having fun with fashion, rather than hiding away, creeping, grey hair covered or dyed, a spine horribly curved from osteoporosis. Not a bit of it!

I was struck too by recent footage of Ali MacGraw, 85 (a longtime idol of mine), leaving her apartment in Manhattan, immaculate and elegant in a trouser suit, silver hair in a topknot. She is so far from the image we are always being sold, which is of 80 year olds twiddling a hanky in liver spotted hands, sat in a care home, waiting to die.

@elderordonezAli MacGraw is stunning at 85! Steve McQueen’s ex-wife is all smiles, looking fantastic in a Dior suit as she celebrates Valentine’s Day at the iconic Lowell Hotel @thelowellhotel in New York City. The actress was 30 when she won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for 1969’s Goodbye, Columbus. One year later, she took on what is probably her most iconic role as Jenny Cavilleri, a working class college student who falls for wealthy classmate Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neal) in 1970’s Love Story. (🎥) @elderordonez1 #alimacgraw #thelowellhotel #ryanoneal #stevemcqueen #blakelively #ryanreynolds #jenniferlopez #benaffleck #pretty #beautiful #happy #justinbieber #haileybieber #kimkardashian #kyliejenner #ladygaga #reels #newyork #selenagomez #taylorswift #fyp #fun #girl

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Compare both of the above with the wonderful Katie Johnson, star of 1955’s The Ladykillers. She played the landlady, Louisa Wilberforce. She was just 76.

Or Esma Cannon, who played little old ladies in a series of Carry On films when she was only in her mid fifties.

To assuage any doubt, Esma is on the left

Women today, with better nutrition and fitness, access to high street fashion and cutting edge cosmetics and, most importantly, disposable independent income, no longer look like that.

Compare my mum at 60, and me at the exact same age.