The seven keys to elegance

I get a video, one of those recommended ones on my phone, explaining the seven keys (not six, not eight) to being an elegant woman "according to Carolina Herrera." Good grief. They must think (they) that I need it. I haven't even gotten past the first one, which says that to be an elegant woman you shouldn't try to look younger. And that includes, hold on a second, not dressing "in overly youthful clothes." In other words, "no leather jackets or ripped jeans."

Why would anyone think that wearing leather jackets and ripped jeans "makes you look younger"? I'm not an elegant woman. Nor do I want to be. But I also don't want to "look younger." I like jeans, they're my favorite thing in the world, and some of the ones I own—I've had them since I was practically young—are ripped. The hypocritical and, of course, unsustainable convention that jeans "wear out" or "tear" dates back decades, to when Kurt Cobain was alive. If I still wear them, decades later, it's because I still like them and, above all, because they fit. No young person I know would wear my leather jackets, precisely because they "make you look old."

I've always liked seeing Tina Turner in a short skirt. What's the matter? And I like seeing "not-so-young" women with long hair, an attitude accepted today, but which, not long ago, wasn't well-received. I like seeing men in T-shirts heavysSuccumbing to nostalgia at concerts. Elegance is a price we can't afford; life is too short, and this threadbare jacket will be with me until it falls apart from old age. Then I'll buy another one.