Wow, a poem! Dashielle, I want to be that kind of Auntie Mame type when I'm older too.

LeopardLuxe, the point here isn't to say that anyone who dresses "young" is trying to fool anyone. It's interesting that you think these "fun" items might be seen as too youthful by someone else, though.

I feel like any general opinions I have on what's aging or too young will just rehash what other people have said and are the type of thing where there's always going to be someone who pulls them off at any age, anyway, so I'll just talk about my own experiences:

-90% of the animal-print stuff out there feels too aging when I try it. I think it's because, with my intense coloring and curviness, it's pretty easy for it to read like I'm trying very hard to look va-va-voom. Which kind of = aging for me. But, obviously, many other people wear lots of animal print in a way that doesn't look too old for them at all.

-I used to wear variations on the kind of outfit with basic jewel-tone tops or twinsets and black pants that Columbine described up thread a lot, and they always made me feel a little like I was dressing too old. I think it's because I was choosing them entirely because they were easy, practical, appropriate and flattering, and not because I particularly liked anything about the look. So I was a 20-something with very few responsibilities in life dressing according to a thought process that would make way more sense for a busy 40-something with a demanding job, kids, and a house to maintain. Also, I'm not sure I wasn't choosing things with the best quality or fit ever, which probably didn't help.

-Some of my beloved casual knit dresses are starting to look too young on me, especially summer ones. I think it's the combination of short length, low-cut neckline, and a kind of shapeless, unstructured cut through the body making them feel a little juniors-ish.

-I wear a lot of outfits with tunics/short dresses, black leggings, and flats on weekends in the spring and fall. I feel like they're probably too youthful (because of the short dresses and the fact that none of the pieces are necessarily great quality) and too aging (because it's a trend that's passed and it's an outfit that's so obviously chosen because it's comfortable) at the same time, but I keep wearing them anyway because they're so useful and I just like them. I'm kind of trying to figure out how to tweak the look, though, so it's not pressing those buttons as much for me.

Too young (on me), short skirts or dresses with tall boots. Used to be my uniform in my early 20's, and that ship has sailed
Also short, fitted tees and sneakers. Never again!

Aging: suits! And white hair, for the time being, but I hope that will change. I wanna be a silver-haired stylish mum when my kids are teenagers.

Yikes, just realized I forgot to credit Jenny Joseph for the above poem

An apropos image for this thread...

PS, everyone with the oil-slick skin: that was me for decades, but thankfully it is not anymore. I never thought I would experience life without it. Part of it might be aging past its internal causes and part of it might be adjusting my way of eating to more primal (e.g. very little starch and seed oils and almost no flour), but I think the biggest factor is my switch to a version of the oil-cleansing method (I just use extra virgin olive oil).

OCM can feel counterintuitive at first, but many, many people have had success with it. I realized that the "beauty experts" who tell us to fight oil by stripping it away and then adding back chemical "oil-free" foundations and moisturizers made no sense. (Read: buy two products! One to unbalance you and one to try rebalancing that is forever inadequate!) People who don't eat Western diets or use Western facial cleansing methods don't have acne.

I still have a subtle shine that I do powder to finish a "face" (subtly), but it is a huge difference from the beacon of shine I was used to that only added to the difficulty of getting a decent photo, etc. etc. I rarely have to repowder now, whereas when I was younger it seemed like I had to manage the shine every hour or two.

leopardluxe - your frog hat is adorable

My mom has been a 'red hat lady' all her life I think. she didn't wait to get old. It embarrassed the heck out of me when I was younger. Now I accept it.

I have a streak of 'red hat lady' that gets more pronounced as I age.

Part of it is that I know how to dress to be taken seriously when appropriate. But most of the time I'm not, nor do I particularly need to be, a 'serious' person. (I am a responsible person, but I try to be light-hearted about it).

The two things that age people more than anything else, in my opinion, are cigarettes and sun exposure.
OK, I know those aren't things you wear, but they make people look older in almost every situation in spite of everything you do to dress well and have a great hairstyle and makeup.

I've been waiting a long time to put on my red hat!

I was at the checkstand again looking at magazines, and one of them has a piece on how women used to look 40 years ago at this age or that, and how they look today. One of the photo comparisons was Anne Bancroft in her mid-thirties and Pink in her mid-thirties now. And yes, Anne looked a lot older. But it wasn't like she was pruned with age. It wasn't a matter of wrinkles. It was a matter of seriousness and gravitas and, I think, a feeling of experience. And responsibility. To be honest, I think people looked older earlier, in previous times, because they became responsible earlier. Truly responsible. Much more responsible than getting a job and showing up fairly regularly and telling other people what to do (i.e., what you want). People back when: They didn't work, they didn't eat.

Extending that to clothes - I think there is, as IK says, a baseline for dress. It may change a bit from country to country, or as time moves forward, but there's always a baseline. And I think there's especially a baseline language of dress for people who carry the weight of authority and responsibility, and they look "old."

Moreover, it's pretty hard to look at magazine pictures these days - esp. magazine pictures of celebrities - to get an understanding of what that baseline is. Maybe you can find them on the internet now, because everyone has a presence here, but the people who keep the world running are low profile.

The western world: Showing thigh, showing shoulders, and fripperous ornamentation - the more you have of that, the less authority (and "age") you convey. You'll need to talk around the message of your clothing.

I agree with Rachy - I think it depends what you're trying to say with your clothes, and what type of a role you play.

I think some really young items on me are dresses with short length, both flare and pencil skirts. I think bright pumps or patterned pumps also read as young, especially if I'm not careful with the rest of my outfit.

I still pull out teal pumps with a longer dress though, in more somber colours

That's wise RL.

Also I think maybe the tech boom knocked things in a new direction a bit. Suddenly you had very wealthy, very influential people who were quite young, and weren't trying to adapt and look like industry titans of the past. They still pretty much wore their coder clothes.

Also fame and influence started to be distributed differently. Suddenly there were all these online channels and the idea of informality and accessibility extended to dress as well as twitter, YouTube, Instagram.

This is a topic that I find myself thinking about often. I recently lost a good bit of weight and am hoping to lose more. In the meantime, however, I am wearing clothes from my closet that last fit me about 8 - 10 years ago. At that time, I was in my late 40s and now I am in my late 50s. I am trying to find a balance in terms of what looks good on me now and what is neither too young nor too old. I once read some advice by Joan Rivers that basically said that you are dressing too young if someone who sees you only from the rear assumes you are significantly younger than your true age and then is struck by your actual age when they see you from the front. I agree with much that has already been said here by others that what is too young and too old is very subjective and depends greatly on the age of the wearer.