You’re Too Sexy for Your Age…Right!, Said Fred

With incessant technology, media image overload and growing up too early against extended longevity comes a new coming of age question: how do I dress in style and age appropriately? Peer pressure and unrealistic, glammed up media body images flashing 24/7 can confuse even an adult mind as to what’s hot and what’s not – how’s a teenager to know what’s too sexy too young? — BadWitch

Readers Are Spellbound & Perplexed…

Dear GWBW — Sup! I have this cute amazing !!!new !!! dress I love and I wore it to school. Then I come home and my mother and her gfs are chillan. Her friend goes, “I would get killed if I wore that to school at 16!” but it’s totally in style. WTF?!!!   — Hot & Sweet Chica

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Dear Sweet Chica,

Well, there are a couple of seemingly opposite statements I need to make. The first is that style and appropriateness are two different things. The second is, why do parents forget that we too wanted to look like we were 22 when we were 16. This is not new or news. This is the age old question of what style is the appropriate style when you’re in between. (Think Britney, “Not a girl, not yet a woman.”

I understand that teenagers tend to wear what looks like club wear to school, because school is the biggest outlet for expressing you and your style—and hotness at school can determine social status. I get the whole pic—I too was a teenager once. However, despite the skin tight mini-dresses worn by 90210 “teens,” this is not actually the most appropriate attire for school. Once in a while, pulling out the SUPER HOT wear makes sense. People take notice. Save the good stuff for the parties. The one thing you don’t want to get labeled is hot to trot—and guys base those labels on how you look as much, if not more than what you do.

That being said, you’re 16! Of course, you want to look hot. Even Miley Cyrus is coming under fire for being a normal 16 year old who wants to look and act older than she is. Because older is cooler at 16! I would say, just be sure that in your race to look hot, you don’t present yourself as a girl who thinks her looks are her worth. Looks make up a VERY small part of your overall worth as a human being. Looking sexy does not define who you are or how sexy you are. For instance, Angelina Jolie is usually seen in leather and jeans. She is incredibly sexy, pretty much an icon of sexy. She does not wear super short dresses. People go nuts when she wears strapless even though the dress is super full and long. Why? Because SHE is the sexy beast they all want to know and get next to. Because she is undeniably herself, loves herself and, more importantly, respects herself FIRST. That confidence is the ultimate sexy, beyond short dresses or skin tight wear.

So that is my long winded way of saying, you be you. Dress in what makes YOU feel comfortable. Dress for you—not for the intended effect on others. Go ahead and work the sexy look from time to time, but remember, sexy is from the inside out. Beyond style, nothing says sexy like a self-loving, expressive, confident woman. And that looks great on any age!

GoodWitch

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Dear Hot & Sweet Chica,

OMG we are soo fashion sistahs from another designer mama!! Long ago, in a lingerie department far, far away, I was solo shopping for basic bras when this dried up old lady quite loudly said to her wise glowing friend who kept trying to shush her, “I would never have been allowed to wear something like that when I was 16!” Hey, Crumble Cake Spice, I’m 21. I’m just one of those objects that looks sweeter in the Don’t Project Your (Bam!) Issues on Me mirror, lady.

I don’t know if you or your mom should be more upset here. After all you’re not 21, it’s her house and her final word you really must respect, so follow her rules and…roll up your skirts half as high as your instinct to, Georgia O’Keefe – I’m sayin’ being wise not just smart is always in style, Ms. Thang. Having said that, if I were she, that concerned but big-mouth girlfriend would’ve gotten an earful on not telling me how to parent. But since you asked for our opinion, my first concern for all daughters out there is on how her early, blossoming psycho-emotional and self-worth development look, because if they’re kapow! big and bouncy then I’m likely to have half as much to worry about (or at least “tweak” – what with Photoshopped misleading media images and peer pressure often working against an impressionable psyche’s best interest) around her dressing in style but age-appropriately for her brainy, slammin’ body (that I also want her to learn to healthily love, embrace and (gulp!) enjoy on her own terms, no one else’s).

And, girl yes I know !!!NEW!!! is always fun…but then it becomes neither amazingly quickly. It’s eternal good taste to develop (start now, take years) a true personal style that reflects and expresses your happiness and ease in your own skin-purpose-joy. My effin brilliant mom advised teenage-BadWitch to do “all that over-the-top fashion crap now when you’re young and no one will think you’re crazy, as opposed to when you’re older and they think you’re pathetic” — or inappropriately projecting all snappy dragon lady style – so of course I always represented my self…just like we all do, darlin’.

Put the long “U” in sexy styling,

BW

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Images, VH1 red carpet; Annie Lebovitz Vanity Fair shoot

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