Ever watch those old black and white interviews of young, British kids from the 1950s - the ones where they sound incredibly posh and eloquent and think “Wow, they look so much older than their years?”
Or maybe you watch a film from the 1980s where the high schoolers who are supposed to be 17 look about 30 and you think: “They just look too old to be in school.”
Well, you’re not making it up. They do look older, and it’s for several reasons.
Go on, guess the ages (CBS Photo Archive / Contributor / via Getty)
Retrospective ageing
Retrospective ageing refers to how fashion can make people look and seem older to us.
When we see people in the past, they are wearing outdated styles that we associate with older people; therefore, we think they have aged rapidly. For example, in the 1950s, long, calf-length skirts for women were paired with button-up cardigans. Or big curly hair from the 1980s.
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As people grow older, they tend to still wear the fashion of their youth, so younger people see those 50s skirts and cardigans as something that older people would wear, not a fashionable young person from the 50’s.
Therefore, seeing people in films from the past, we perceive them to look older because their styling hints at their age.
Lifestyle changes
Do you see the difference too? (ABC Photo Archives / Contributor / via Getty)
But this isn’t everything; there are other contributing factors.
Back in the day, people generally had poorer nutrition, whereas nowadays, there is a huge wellness craze. Medicine has improved and advanced, and we’ve obviously seen the massive boom of the injectables industry.
Botox is a lot more common too, as well as less invasive methods like retinoids and other skincare and age prevention methods.
In a world where we are so online, people compare themselves to one another more and therefore become more insecure and prioritise things like looking younger for longer.
We’re obsessed with healing our inner child
Millennials and Gen Z are definitely focused on ‘healing our inner child' more so than previous generations.
When I first heard this phrase, I thought it would be just another TikTok fad, but it’s really lasted the test of time, proving to be of cultural significance.
A lot of us felt rushed to grow up, and now, in our early adult life, claim the right to the joys of our childhood. Things like dressing in cartoon tops, colourful patterns, cute hairclips and accessories can make us appear generally younger than people of a similar age in the past, when this wasn’t as big a phenomenon.
Lauren Lees