Our writer and her husband still adore each other, and as they age, they are discovering new ways to embellish their looks
My husband, Matthew, and I have been together for 30 years, married for 26. We met at my cousin’s birthday dinner. I was wearing skintight trousers from Joseph, with my lacy knickers peeking out at the back (which had him following me around all evening). I wasn’t exactly sold on his turquoise brothel creepers, but he was handsome, funny and undeniably hot, which more than made up for the questionable footwear. That night we fell in lust and have been pretty much in sync ever since.
Not that there haven’t been bumps along the way. A few years ago, just before his 60th birthday, Matthew was made redundant from a six-figure corporate role. At first, we were buoyed by the payoff and confident he’d find something else. After all, he always had. But this time was different. He applied for more than 200 jobs and heard nothing. No interviews, no rejections. Just silence. It was as if he had simply disappeared off the radar. Invisible. Redundant.
My husband, Matthew, and I have been together for 30 years, married for 26. We met at my cousin’s birthday dinner. I was wearing skintight trousers from Joseph, with my lacy knickers peeking out at the back (which had him following me around all evening). I wasn’t exactly sold on his turquoise brothel creepers, but he was handsome, funny and undeniably hot, which more than made up for the questionable footwear. That night we fell in lust and have been pretty much in sync ever since.
Not that there haven’t been bumps along the way. A few years ago, just before his 60th birthday, Matthew was made redundant from a six-figure corporate role. At first, we were buoyed by the payoff and confident he’d find something else. After all, he always had. But this time was different. He applied for more than 200 jobs and heard nothing. No interviews, no rejections. Just silence. It was as if he had simply disappeared off the radar. Invisible. Redundant.
Meanwhile, I found myself stepping further into visibility as our two children grew up and became more independent. My midlife-style-and-beauty Instagram account began to grow. Sharing my outfits, growing in confidence, dabbling with tweakments, I was feeling good about myself – and how I looked and felt.
But supportive as I tried to be, the man I’d fallen in love with, and shared a life and a bed with, for so many years seemed to shrivel before my eyes. A man who had always felt purposeful seemed suddenly unsure of his place, anxious and adrift. And that is definitely not sexy.
We rubbed along. And when he re-emerged three years later, PhD in hand and a new AI venture taking shape, his mojo began to return.
For me, though, it was the visible changes that made the difference: the subtle gear shifts of styling that reveal deeper currents of the soul, and, I’ll be honest, the libido.
Am I that shallow? Are appearance, style and presentation really so essential to a healthy relationship? I asked him what style switches have brought about this change? From his perspective and mine, this is what we found.
Matthew’s upgrades
Eyewear Matters
Marie-Louise: When it comes to glasses, it’s a make or break in terms of looking sexy. I thanked all the gods I could name when he lost his old pair of little round glasses on a drunken night out. It forced him to turn his metal aviator sunglasses into readers with tinted lenses. Suddenly, he looked hot like a 1970s louche film star, aka Magnum.
Matthew: Old friends come in two forms: the ones you trust, and the ones you wear. One of the former comes to London religiously for the Notting Hill Carnival and expects me to keep up. And my John Lennon specs, which sat on my nose like a delicate feather, were the latter. They were the optical equivalent of the perfect, worn-in cardigan. Comfy but not sexy, apparently.
I woke up post-carnival with a sore head and a naked face. After a brief bout of mourning, I put my hand in my pocket and went full tinted aviator. I noticed that other people noticed, too. “What have I seen you in?” they asked, scanning a face that no woman had looked at with interest in years. Lesson learned: eyewear matters.
Fixing the turkey neck
Marie-Louise: While we women tend to fixate on cellulite and softening jawlines in midlife, men aren’t immune to their own hang-ups. For Matthew, it was his neck. The gradual blurring of jaw into collar that he jokingly called his “turkey neck”, though it clearly bothered him more than he let on. So I persuaded him to try CoolSculpting, his first foray into the world of tweakments. The results weren’t dramatic, but that wasn’t the point. They were subtle, just enough to restore a little definition, and a surprising boost in confidence.
Matthew: Thanks to my maternal grandfather, I’ve inherited a full head of hair. At my age, that’s rare. Grandpa Paddy also bequeathed a less welcome attribute, the “Fisher chin” – a gentle nursery slope of slackening skin connecting chin to throat. Online conference calls seem to highlight it in a way that’s hard not to see.
Foolishly, I mentioned this to my wife, who gleefully booked me for a tweakment. CoolSculpting (and come on, who would say no to some of that?) freezes the fatty agglomerations of age, allowing the lymphatic system to wash it away to reveal the chiselled jaw of manliness hiding beneath.
It was fun. But I confess, I couldn’t see much difference. And while I quite enjoyed the attention, the follow-up consultations recommending Botox or Polynucleotides or who knows what reminded me that sometimes you just have to play the best hand you can with the cards you’re dealt.
Swapping a loud party shirt for a linen suit
Marie-Louise: Matthew has always had an unapologetically eclectic sense of style. I’m forever investing in beautifully understated pieces from Mr Porter for him, only to find them relegated to gardening duty.
His infamous monkey-print shirt was, quite rightly, vetoed for our daughter’s engagement party. So last summer, I took matters into my own hands and bought him a beautifully cut pale-blue suit from Paul Smith, a piece that has quietly and reliably saved the sartorial day ever since.
Matthew: Ah, now, let me tell you about this shirt. Yes, it’s made from some kind of plastic insulation fabric that brings up a rash and summons the acrid scent of Hades from the wearer’s armpits. And admittedly it’s precisely the kind of fast fashion that’s choking the planet and stifling more sustainable competitors.
But (and hear me out here) it features, emblazoned across the front, a grinning chimpanzee in a tuxedo – drinking a martini! And it’s pink. In my mind, it’s a garment that says: “This loose cannon ran with the Rat Pack. Dean, Frank and Sammy are his spirit guides. Guaranteed life and soul of the party.”
But to everyone else it seems to say: “Dad, please… no. Just no.” And maybe they’re right. Rolling into our daughter’s engagement party in the well-fitting Paul Smith suit, the compliments came rolling in.
From grandad beard to suave moustache
Marie-Louise: The grandfatherly beard had to go. He switched this up for a neatly kept moustache, which he regularly dyes with ladies’ roots touch-up from Clairol. But he needed a little help, so I shipped him off to Fella, a Soho barber institution, for a grooming upgrade. The results are a little more rakish.
Matthew: As mentioned, time’s merciless footprint stamps heaviest on the face. Skin sags. Blotches bloom. Wrinkles that once were laugh-lines deepen into alpine crevasses. For women, this is combatted by the lotions and potions that support the multibillion-pound global industry of rejuvenators.
But when men face the same grim challenge, we simply grow a beard.
Sadly, my own thin blonde follicles stubbornly refuse to produce that suave, lush sward of masculinity I yearn for. Instead, the best I can manage is a kind of drought-ridden scrubland.
But here’s the trick: work with what you have. Even better, consult an expert. The chaps at Fella are my go-to miracle workers, sculpting my tolerably hirsute upper lip, so now it’s all about the moustache. Easy to keep, cheap to colour and just distinctive enough to distract from the ravages of time happening elsewhere.
Marie-Louise’s upgrades
Flattering new shoe shapes
Marie-Louise: I’ve quietly retired my loafers in favour of moccasins, and I’m not looking back. They’re far more flattering on my (admittedly generous) size 42 feet and seem to work with everything. At 61, the chunky loafer never quite did me any favours and I always felt slightly frumpy. The return of the suede moccasin has been a revelation. They’re soft, comfortable and versatile: they go just as well with cropped trousers as with maxi skirts or even shorts.
Matthew: She does have “generous” feet, it’s true. But she also has long, toned, tanned legs that go all the way up, so you don’t really look at her feet. But, if pressed for an opinion, I’d say I’m Team Moccasin. Loafers make her feel frumpy, and frumpy isn’t sexy.
Embracing the trend for capri pants
Marie-Louise: I’m delighted to see the return of the pedal pusher. It’s a style with understated sex appeal. Think Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s. I bought my first pair in 1979, aged 15, and wore them with ballet pumps; it’s a look that has stood the test of time.
Now, in my 60s, I’d argue they’re an even more flattering, chic, grown-up alternative to shorts or jeans in the summer. They skim the body in all the right places and feel effortlessly put together.
I love them styled with a cropped-sleeve crew neck. It’s an easy, elegant way to switch things up and feel just that bit sexier.
Matthew: Did we already discuss her legs? Of course we have. So there’s an obvious skew in my views on this topic. But if I can speak from a male perspective, I think a workable number of us can agree on some of the associations triggered by the words “capri Pants”.
What images are stirred by three-quarter-clad woman’s legs? Bond Girls with some random lethal device in hand. Brigitte Bardot swanking through Saint-Tropez. Madonna urging papa not to preach.
Most of all, the capri Pant says: “Summer’s here. Look at my legs.” And that’s sexy.
A smile upgrade
Marie-Louise: I’ve long been a fan of veneers. Years of antibiotics as a child left my natural teeth slightly yellow, with gaps at the front and a gummy smile I was always conscious of. I first had veneers about 20 years ago, but they were well overdue an update. I found myself holding back from a full smile.
Last year, I decided to get them sorted and saw Dr Sam Jethwa, who designed a bespoke smile and fitted eight new veneers. The transformation has been remarkable. They look natural, they’re the right shade of white and, most importantly, they’ve given me back my confidence. These days, I smile without thinking, and far more often.
Matthew: When we first met, the first thing I noticed was her perfect, symmetrical choppers. At the time, mine, frankly, needed work. So I opened my campaign by asking her to recommend a good dentist – which, of course, she had.
Over the years, that smile has brightened my days. Prompting it is my passion. So I was surprised when she announced her teeth were sub-optimal and needed replacing. How do you improve on perfection?
Perhaps I’m the wrong person to ask for an opinion on this, as I’m clearly biased. Or maybe I need to pay more attention. But if she’s smiling more, that has to be a good thing.
Fixing her sunspots
Marie-Louise: My sister-in-law remarked recently that sunspots are one of the quickest ways to age the skin and she’s absolutely right. Years of sun exposure, not least living in Sydney in my 30s, had started to show. It felt as though every glimpse of sunshine brought another patch of pigmentation with it.
So I decided to do something about it.
I recently had BBL (broadband light) treatment at The Cosmetic Skin Clinic, which uses pulses of light to target and break down pigmentation. The results have been impressive. After three sessions, most of the sunspots have faded significantly, leaving my skin looking clearer and more even.
Of course, maintenance is everything. Now it’s SPF 50 every day, a good sun hat and being far more mindful about keeping my face out of direct sun.
Matthew: Google “sun-worshipper” and there’s a picture of my wife. While my pale Irish skin is happiest cowering in the shade, hers is only ever satisfied drenched in sunlight. On holiday you’ll find her by the pool. I’ll be at the bar.
That said, we all know that darkening blotches on the face are a bad sign. So if they can be blasted off by some miracle of cosmetic surgery, so much the better. And she does look better. And younger. But mainly happier. And I’m going to start buying her hats, so she stops stealing mine.