OP-ED: Why fashion still doesn't understand the grey pound by Rebecca Smith, editor of Goldie Magazine

Age is no longer an accurate predictor of fashion choices. It’s old fashioned to segregate by age demographic, so why do so many fashion brands still insist on doing so?

A recent Drapers Record article asked ‘Who caters for the fashion-conscious fifties?’ Who indeed? Fashion retail gets it so wrong when it comes to appealing to the men and women I know who are in this demographic. The fashion spend of this age group in the UK last year amounted to £12.2bn (out of a total of £34.6bn, a third of the market share), you would think that brands would be endeavouring to get it right. The expression "grey pound" refers to the purchasing power of the older generation as consumers.

It’s often seen as if these older men and women are stubbornly refusing to “dress their age”; they are shunning the traditional retailers who cater for the ‘beige brigade’ and expecting to be treated to fashion and fit like any other age group. The audacity of these Boomers is outrageous!

But the idea of shopping from a label which screams ‘this is for you, you 55 year old has-been’ fills me with dread. And I don’t believe that any of our GOLDIE followers on Instagram would spend their money on clothes which carried such stereotypical connotations either.

My favourite trend forecaster, Lidewij Edelkoort, has been talking for years about how brands must change the way they market to an age group. After more than four decades helping brands to anticipate customer desire, Edelkoort believes we’ll see brands losing market share if they persist in treating age as indicative of a style tribe. As Edelkoort said  “Wake up, people!” 

Categorising by age is meaningless: shoppers are sectioned off into age ranges as if our buying patterns, motivation, and lifestyles are homogenous and based solely on how many years we’ve been alive. This isn’t the case. Too many fashion brands are ignoring the fact that the over-fifties are just as woke as younger generations. The McKinsey State of fashion 2019 report highlighted fashion needs to “have the courage to “self-disrupt” their own identity and the sources of their old success in order to realise these changes and win new generations of customers.” I would add, and win old generations of customers too.

The over-fifties are just as passionate for social and environmental causes and will reward players that take a strong stance on social and environmental issues. They want brands that offer transparency and ethics, and sustainable fashion practices are as relevant to the older age group as younger fashion shoppers. Actually they may even be more so, this generation is full of the original hippies and radicals who embraced second-hand and repair/recycle/renew long before it was rediscovered as ‘sustainable fashion’.

Where is the resale market for over-fifties? Who is catering for that niche? Fashion rental could be bigger than fast fashion within ten years, and it won’t only be the young who swarm to that way of consuming fashion. Established fashion brands will need to pick up the pace— if they can’t embrace new ownership models their relevance to consumers of all ages will weaken at the same time. I know plenty of over-fifties who are actively seeking new brands and start-ups who are aligned with their values. With consumers increasingly drawn to small brands with compelling and authentic stories, could established companies learn how to think like these start-ups? And in doing so attract the over-fifties fashion lover who wants to wear their values.

Eileen Fisher is one brand showing what can be done to add these ideas into the status quo fashion model: “Renew,” takes back pre-worn products to refurbish them or uses the materials to create new products. Surely this model could be taken up by any of the British High Street brands who are searching to renew their hold with this eco-concerned age group.

However, the conversation which arises time and again on the GOLDIE Instagram platform is regarding the use of age-relevant models in campaigns and how important this is to customers who want to see someone they relate to in contemporary fashion. The old adage if you can’t see it you can’t be it really does seem to be the key to encouraging the over-fifties to engage with a particular brand. And they don’t want tokenism or only perfectly-wrinkled-white-skinny-silver-haired celebrities to model how to be fashionably old. I would argue that to attract brand loyalty in the over fifties fashion companies need to be utilising the same intersectional representation as they do across other age groups. Real diversity matters to this age group: they want to see older plus-size models, older ethnic models, older models with disabilities and older trans models. And they want to see them as visible as the young models across the spectrum. Inclusivity can no longer be ignored or treated as an add-on, then discarded further along the line. 

And it seems this goes for the menswear market too: David Evans, a popular menswear blogger, tells me “brands should market across ages, and it’s easy to do, look at Ralph Lauren for instance, they mix young and old models without alienating either age group.”

By way of research, I asked a small sample of women who looked to be in the over fifties age range and were on Oxford Street on a recent wet Thursday afternoon, what store catered most to their fashion needs? Both John Lewis - “Our approach is to offer clothes that make our customers feel great whatever their age.” -  and Debenhams - “It’s not about age – it’s about individual style.” – were cited as feeling authentic in showing fashion for all ages.

Perhaps there are still some fashion shoppers who feel that they need guidance as to age-appropriate fashion but I suspect this is diminishing fast. We are all wearing, and buying clothes, that transcend trends, but link to our own values. For some that will still be fast fashion but, more and more, we are seeing fashion as an extension of other sustainable lifestyle practices; the over-fifties are no exception to this movement. The brands that will be most rewarded with the grey pound may well be those who make sustainable fashion easily understood and age-agnostic.

Rebecca Smith is the editor of Goldie Magazine, an independent publication dedicated to the growing market of motivated, aspirational older people who see ageing in a positive way. She worked in the fashion industry in various roles until a life-changing moment where she retrained as a counsellor and focused on therapy for creatives. After completing an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology Rebecca created WearingWellbeing as a platform to discuss how fashion can be good for us. Clothes have always made her happy.

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