6 Good Reasons to Fake It!

Remember when only rich ladies got to own all the beautiful jewelry? Happily, it’s hard, sometimes even impossible, to tell the real from the fake pieces today, so we can bedeck ourselves to look glam at gloriously reasonable prices.

I’m going to use this beautiful pave link bracelet as an example. Sparkling and substantial, it’s well made and would look as wonderful with jeans and a white tee in the summer as it would with your favorite black dress for a winter holiday party.

This bracelet sells for a little less than $100 at some of the best stores. The real thing would cost thousands.

Now to my sales pitch: You can own this bracelet AND another fab fake, plus help support FabOverFifty.com, for a $100 donation.

The two pieces of jewelry would absolutely cost you over $100 at any store, but since FabOverFifty luckily gets them wholesale, we can gift them to you, and still make a little bit to help support the website.

We all want to be careful how we spend our money, so I didn’t want to ask you to support FabOverFifty without giving you something back to show my appreciation. Besides the pave link bracelet, we’ve selected five other marvelous pieces from which to choose. And if you don’t wish to donate $100, you can donate less and still get to own a fab fake.

When you give to other fundraisers you might get a flimsy canvas tote bag. Help FabOverFifty.com and you’ll get something beautiful to enjoy for years to come (not to mention the website, too!)

Click to sparkle & support

We’re in vogue, Vogue is not

When I was in my forties and gaily decorating the first apartment I ever owned, I relished leafing through Metropolitan Home for ideas about paint colors for the walls, upholstery for the sofa and treatments for the windows.  What fun it was to see the lovely things I could do in my new home.  Arlene Hirst, one of my oldest friends, was a design editor at the magazine. I looked forward to her juicy tidbits about furniture trends and cool new gadgets for the kitchen.

That's me, courtesy of my talented daughter Simone
That's me, courtesy of my talented daughter Simone

Now I can go blog-wild and get advice, recommendations and ideas from design mavens all over the world.  Every maven has a different temperament and taste so I can search till I find one whose style suits me. Magazines like Metropolitan Home, Domino and scads more simply lost relevance and interest.  They were vanilla.  No edge.  Same stories rehashed year after year.

Metropolitan Home died today. While it saddens me to see people lose their jobs, I will not miss the magazine.  I also would not miss Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W and Elle.  I’d much rather read the amusing fashion posts at www.amidlifeofprivilege.blogspot.com, a delightful blog by Fab Over Fifty Lisa from California.   “I prefer to call it Fierce at Fifty,” she says. “Because life is not what I thought it would be and the adventures I had at 20 do not compare.”  Lisa suggested I also look at www.passagedesperles.blogspot.com, a witty and smart fashion blog written by Dutchess.  There are others.

“I get annoyed when I see articles in women’s magazines about makeup or clothing appropriate for women in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Sometimes they even include 50s, but rarely do they show women older than that. Do they think older women are no longer interested?” Leslie wrote to FOF. “When magazines run photo essays on well-known older women, why do they photo shop all the wrinkles out?”

Leslie, you and I know we’re interested in fashion.  Women over fifty spend $25 billion a year on clothes. The fashion magazines, however, are not interested in us. They don’t really care what we think or look like. It will ruin their image if they focus on women over 39.

Anna Wintour (she’s the editorial fashion guru at Vogue, if you don’t know) turned sixty last week.  Personally, I think she’s more interested in glossing her image than the glossy magazine is in its reader’s interests.

When Domino folded, a former editor launched Lonny, an online design magazine that directs you right to the products it features. And faboverfifty.com will do the same with fashion and the other products we all swear by, books to bathing gel.  Anna Wintour won’t be telling us what she loves; we’ll be telling each other.

Maybe Anna will even get some ideas from us for her own wardrobe.  She could use a new look.

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