30 Days to 10 years younger--10 minute tips. Tip 20: Think like a decorator

A decorator once said that if you walk into a house and look around, you can tell how old the owners are.

I find the whole idea depressing, because I suspect that my house is telling the world I'm 80.

But let's explore the idea and apply it to clothes. Can people tell your age from your clothes? I think they can.

Young people just starting out stay current because current is all they know. If my daughter decided to buy a white t-shirt, a jean skirt, and a cardigan, she'd end up getting something like this:

Fitted T-shirt from Forever XXI

Jean skirt from The Gap

Ruffled-edged tie-front sleeveless cardigan from Forever XXI

Meanwhile, my mother would end up with stuff like this:

T-shirt from Lands End

Chambray skirt from Vermont Country Store

Cardigan from Lands End

Now, when you think about it, nothing says a cardigan has to be a plain, button-up, long-sleeved sweater. Or that a jean skirt has to graze the top of your ankles. Or that a t-shirt has to be boxy.

And certainly nothing says you have to wear the old lady stuff from head to toe.

So for today, do a youth inventory of your clothes. Figure out the likely demographic for each piece you're wearing. See if you can't tweak your look a little. (And include your accessories! The right shoes, bag, and jewelry can shave off a lot of years.)

30 Days to 10 years younger--10 minute tips. Tip 11: Make new friends

I remember my first trip to the magazine rack as a newlywed. After years as a single woman and months of planning a wedding, all of a sudden it felt like there was nothing for me to read. Magazines seemed to be aimed at three kinds of readers: Cosmo girls, aspiring socialites, or parents of young children. It was either sex tips, fall runway fashion, or "can this marriage be saved?"

Where were the magazines with style tips for impoverished graduate students?

That's when I discovered Sassy. Which I was way too old to read. I mean, I was insanely outside of their demographic. But I read it anyway, because it had great take away information.

And this is what I advise you to do, too. Find sources of information that are outside of your comfort zone.

I look for inspiration everywhere, and you should, too. Look for sources of style that are aimed at women who are older, younger, artier, or more bourgeois than you are. And find your sources in old and new media, please. I mean, of course I'm BFFs with the internet, but think about it:

• newspapers alert you to sales and get you up to date on local sources for stylish goods in :gasp: brick and mortar stores.
• magazines have big beautiful pages--and you don't have to wait for them to load.
• books pack a ton of information into a relatively small amount of space, and the best ones provide invaluable information (I'll be doing book reviews on this blog, as soon as this series is over.)

All of them tend to be more thought out, more reasoned, more deftly written, and less hey-look-something-shiny than web sites and blogs. Even this one.

So that's why I subscribe to a bunch of magazines--including Teen Vogue, which seems to be the closest I can get to my beloved Sassy. I also pick up foreign editions of Vogue. It doesn't matter that I can't buy the stuff they show. My goal is to wake up my eyes, and reading a magazine out of my demographic and comfort zone is a great way to do it.