Lots of fifty, sixty and seventy year old women have embraced boho. Here’s why:
- Comfortable to wear
- Perfect for temperature control
- Look feminine whatever your body shape
- A fashion that never really goes out of style
- Easy to liven up a classic outfit with a boho item
- Style boho as cool, vintage, fun or eye-popping
- Nostalgia for our youth
- Often inexpensive
- In line with recycling and sustainable fashion philosophy (usually)
How to wear Boho when you’re over 50
Make the most of the wide-cut, floaty, unstructured style of most boho clothes.
With the 70’s having a revival right now you’ll find lots of boho items have crept back into the stores.
I’ve included a Boho-style peasant embroidered wide sleeved top, a Boho flounced midi dress and a pair of those foot-bed double-buckle sandals (totally comfy believe me) in my Capsule Wardrobe Summer 2021 – take a look and see what you think!
Boho sleeves
Look out for big sleeves, including bell sleeves and sleeves with drapey cuffs. These look good on square-cut peasant style blouses with either embroidery or lace details. Avoid collars on these tops and go for simple round necks or drawstrings that hang next to a V neck. Younger women may look good with a wide sleeve and a wide skirt but you will look better with jeans.
Boho jeans
Flared jeans are everywhere today. But are they right for you? Flares can elongate long legs and give a good shape. But they look much better on flat hips. So if you’re 70 and tall and slender, then flares will look stunning on you.
If you’re a bit rounder or squarer you could look at the return of authentic vintage boyfriend style jeans. These are similar to the Levis 501’s worn in the sixties but usually have added stretch these days. They won’t garotte your middle and come in the paler wash that spells late seventies to me.
Boho skirts
Flouncy tiered skirts are a gift from heaven for older thicker legs. Wear them to mid-calf or down to the ankle. They’ll make you look feminine and mask that tummy at the same time. Layer tops over them for a gypsy vibe or stick with a fitted tee and a cardigan or longer jacket for a smarter look.
Boho dresses
Remember how Laura Ashley started? She introduced small prints on floaty dresses back in the late sixties. Well, they’re back again today. This romantic feminine style looks great on all women. Go for a dress that’s tiered from neck to hem if you have lots to cover up. Or opt for a more fitted bodice and a waist to look country fresh.
Boho small floral prints
So easy to wear. You’ll find them everywhere. Mix prints on layered tops or tops and bottoms for that peasant look where women wear all their clothes at the same time. Or put them up against a white or black item for a more urban style.
Boho traditional and ethnic patterns
No need to stick to tiny floral prints. There are tribal chevrons and all sorts of other colorful ethnic prints and weaves available. Perfect on a jacket over jeans or to draw the eye down a long robe-like dress.
Boho decorative details
Think lace, ruffles and embroidery. All these are good at disguising any imperfections we may have now that we’re older. Just make sure these details are positioned on your outfit to attract the eye away from the less beautiful bits of you.
Lined decolletage or double chin? Details should be on cuffs or at waist level or below. Big waist? Go for detailing around the neck or the hem (not both). Wide hips? Look for dresses with a central panel of embroidery.
Boho patch-work
Yes, even patchwork is back. It works well for us over 50’s when it’s on a jacket or a bag. It can be in any fabric including velvet. A good highlight for a plainer outfit. Just shows you’re in touch without making you look like you’re still wearing that kit you wore to the Donovan concert.
Boho earth colors
If you want a less busy look then pick out tunics and cover-ups in toning layers. Choose natural fabrics and keep everything loose. This will give you the ultimate ‘you’ll never guess how much weight I put on during lockdown’ style. Wear with flat shoes or sandals.
Boho kimono tops and dusters
The kimono was not, as far as I recall, a seventies item but none the less it looks fabulous. The huge wide sleeves work into the seventies silhouette. The instant way to upstyle a tee and jeans to boho chic with either the shorter jacket type or the long flimsier duster coat. Look for ethnic, tribal and big floral designs. Or stay super smart by wearing a Japanese-look pattern.
Boho footwear
Flats, thick soled and strapped sandals, boots and clogs. Peasants and gypsies didn’t wear heels, surprise, surprise. At our age we know why! So even if you’re styling boho for a more city look you can, and should, wear flat ‘work-style’ footwear. Birkenstocks are famous for their comfort and you can get them on Amazon. Any type of flat boot will work well, from Doc Martens to Uggs and beyond.
Boho jewelry
Layer this on and on and on. A good way to cover a sun-dried neck and chest area.
But, unless your ankles are slim, don’t fool yourself you can wear those slave anklet chains.
Keep jewelry high up or attach it to your waist or a bag so eyes are drawn to you lovely face. Semi-precious stones and polished pebbles won’t break the bank. Or add some Mexican silver items or gypsy gold chains to complete your boho look.
What style of boho is right for you?
Vintage boho
This is basically the sixties and seventies’ hippie style revisited. Think maxi dresses, small prints, woven straw bags, patchwork, layers and printed velvets. Anything Indian goes into the mix too such as long floaty shirts in thin cotton. Add to this flared denim pale-wash jeans. And don’t let’s forget tie-dye.
If you liked seventies fashions, vintage boho could be right for you.
All types of seventies fashion is creeping back into even mainstream retailers such as Marks and Spencer’s. Bell sleeves came along last year and flared jeans – though now with added stretch for a sexier cling around your rear – have been big news for a couple of seasons.
So you’ll be very fashion-forward with hippie styles.
The danger is that as you are now er…old…vintage styles are likely to make you look as if you’ve been wearing the same kit all your adult life.
Vintage looks best on someone young. There’s a sort of fashion conversation going on between the mismatch of age and style. So you need to dress vintage with care.
Romantic boho
Think gypsy styles, smocking, embroidery, small floral prints, lace, ruffles and any sort of ‘peasant’ decoration. Soft fabric tote bags to sling over your shoulder. And on your feet – clogs.
Clogs are going to be big this year. Well, clogs tend to be pretty big anyway but right now shoe retailers are keen for you to invest in this mill workers’ staple.
This romantic Laura Ashley style of dressing is great for the spring and summer. It tends to be inexpensive too. This year all mainstream fashion shops are showing a flowing, especially tiered, long print dress that is perfect to get the look.
West Coast boho
This is a good summer look. Think earthy and sunshine tones with layer upon layer of natural fabrics. Add in some American ethnic details such as Navajo-influenced chevron patterned jackets and big cardigans for cooler days. Keep your hairstyle loose and informal. This style emphasises sunny good health too.
This look has come to be associated with women of any age who value the natural as a source of food, health, beauty and design. It suggests a certain degree of wealth. There’s a touch of New Age to it too.
The great thing about this fashion trend for older women is how easy it is to wear. The rather shapeless tunics, shirts, dresses and skirts can be layered to disguise a big tummy or a large rear. Nothing clings. Fabrics with stretch have no place in this style.
It’s a simple, comfortable, feel-good fashion that has never really been off-trend since 1975.
This style is good for you if you are a self-confident woman with little interest in city streets and long for the simple life. Gather items one by one and make mixing and matching fun. Avoid harsh or modern bright dyes. Go for undyed linen tunics, tie-dye tees, stone and sand-colored simple cotton shift dresses as well as easy-cut pale wash vintage-style jeans.
Go bare foot indoors and whenever else you can. Otherwise wear simple thong or leather strap sandals. No tight-fitting footwear. If it’s cold then pull on some wide-cut boots or up your look with cowboy styles.
Boho Chic
This is a modern take on boho styling.
It is urban and has fashionista appeal.
It puts together items of any of the boho styles with modern clothing pieces. Think floaty floral cover-ups with skinny jeans. Or a romantic tiered dress with heels and a squashy large clutch bag. Even just adding fringing to a jacket worn with your favorite outfit can give you the boho chic look.
If the earth-mother vibe of West Coast boho is too laid back for you then boho chic could be ideal.
Although worn by the young and slender, you can adapt the look to suit your more mature figure. The long beautiful duster coat style cover-up should be on your to-buy list this year. You’ll see them everywhere. They’re perfect for the beach of course but wear them at home over anything casual when having friends round (if that ever happens again) or over a more fitted tee and pants ensemble to look on trend around town.
Personally I prefer the shorter kimono style jacket that is popular now. I’m easily drowned by anything longer than just below knee length. These jackets come in traditional quilted styles or as simple unlined layering items.
Choose a striking Japanese floral design or an intense indigo dye. These will turn your West Coast boho shift or tunic into a more stylish outfit. And they will upstyle your jeans and tie-dye tee to chic.
Bonkers boho
Where boho meets glam.
A few years back a young man, Ari Seth Cohen, started photographing elderly women in New York. They wore an eye-popping array of colors and prints layered over each other. They often added a hat or unusual sunglasses. They were covered head to foot and the glasses obscured quite a bit of their faces too.
The result was a style I call Bonkers Boho. The photography was collected into a best selling book ‘Advanced Style’. With a follow-up, Advanced Style Older and Wiser’, coming out a few years later.
You will either love or hate Advanced Style.
We all know that uncanny feeling of starting to simply disappear after the age of 50. And at over 70 I can assure you nobody on the street looks twice at you, nobody your age reads the news or gabbles the weather forecast and nobody models clothes for retailers – though there are a growing bunch of us who show our outfits on social media and in blogs like this one.
Advanced style showed women in visually startling outfits where toning neutrals were a joke. The outrageous boho vibe was unmistakeable. These boho women demanded you notice them – whatever their age.
I admit I couldn’t wear bonkers boho. While I am very much in favor of having more images of older women in the media and being taken more notice of in life and work, I have enjoyed the sense of privacy and safety that ‘disappearing’ has given me. I can walk, lunch or go to the cinema alone these days without taking care to avert my eyes from men.
But if you love to be noticed – and why not! – then take a look at Cohen’s bonkers boho pics and think about going for it.
Mish mash lots of color and pattern together and keep your cool as heads turn. It’s a unique, usually vintage, style (far, far from classic style) where your adventurous flair for color and shape is highlighted.
If you ever go bonkers boho we’d all love to see a selfie. Leave a comment in the section below and I’ll email you to get the pic!
Best places to buy boho clothes and accessories
Most large department stores in UK and North America will have at least some boho items. Favorites right now tend to be small floral print or ethnic print summer dresses – tunics, midi and maxi are all popular.
Marksandspencer.com have a few excellent blouses and dresses in boho style. They are inexpensive.
Bloomingdales.com also lists several items which you could wear as a single boho item or layer to make a more retro look.
Both of these stores have flared jeans in a pale wash too.
Anthropologie.com with bricks-and-mortar stores in North America, France and the UK are a great store for sourcing delightfully romantic peasant-influenced dresses, skirts and jewelry.
Etsy.com has a whole area dedicated to boho so is a must-look if you want an inexpensive hand-made or vintage item.
You should also check out some of the cheaper online fashion retailers such as New Chic. Because boho is easy to wear, ideal for spring and summer, and adapts well to layering these retailers can sell thousands of a single item at rock bottom prices. I’m not saying the quality will be as good as a store you know well but if the item is just for a fun addition to an outfit I’d give them a try.
Where does boho style come from?
If you are interested in such things here’s a quick ‘history’ of boho.
Boho had its heyday in the late sixties and the seventies. Images of hippie women at Woodstock and other festivals inspired us all with hopes that an anti-establishment new age was dawning. And we wanted the floaty ethnic clothes that marked us out as part of that movement.
I wore long printed skirts, maxi dresses with tiers and ruffles, second-hand velvet jackets and smelly real fur embroidered jackets from 1968 through my college days until the mid seventies.
Then one day my boss at a part-time teaching gig in Paris told me my clothing was inappropriate for a cadre (white-collar employee) and overnight I ditched the whole trend and became a classic casual.
What does boho mean?
Boho comes from the word bohemian which characterized beatnicks and other non-mainstream style movements after the end of the Second World war.
Originally applying to gypsies who were living in central Europe (Bohemia is an old name for what is now the Czech Republic and surroundings) bohemian came to mean someone who was anti-establishment or on the edge of society.
The birth of hippie fashion
Actually hippies thought of the word ‘bohemian’ as very 50’s and didn’t use it about themselves. But today’s boho clothing is very much based on hippie style.
Women demanded freedom – mainly sexual and physical freedom. Wide skirts were perfect for both!
In the Swinging Sixties of London, mini skirts were mainstream fashion. The hippies, coming from sunny West Coast America, offered urban young people everywhere an alternative less up-tight look.
The folk revival
Musicians and artists regularly revive ‘traditional’ arts, crafts and songs.
The folk music boom led by recording artists such as Peter, Paul and Mary fused with other influences to make stars of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Look at those record sleeves and see boho clothing everywhere.
Freedom to travel
By the time the Beatles visited the Maharishi everyone under the age of 30 wanted to roam the world and learn about different philosophies and beliefs. Suburbia was stifling.
Indian printed cotton skirts and hairy afghan embroidered coats were as far as most of us got in those days but they brought the spirit of freedom to coffee bars across Britain and North America. (Interestingly mainland European kids weren’t so interested in these styles back then.)
Romantic country style
Starting with Laura Ashley’s flouncy peasant-inspired dresses in West Wales – she used to carefully copy early fabric prints from the V&A – women took to a romantic country look and this also merged into boho.
Urban chic update
Finally, 25 years after this post-war style revolution, It girls and starlets started to wear the same items with contrasting styles to produce a city mash-up.
Freedom to make money and become a social media personality might have become the new philosophy for these young women but so had the interest in vintage everything. They found pure styles boring – the world had become multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-style. Eclectic mixes stormed through fashion, home décor and music recordings.
Back to the seventies
Fashion is a wheel that never stops turning. Which means every few decades we return to a place we’ve been before.
Right now that’s the seventies with it’s big silhouette.
Of course designers have changed the vibe a little. Health is now so important that trainers are standard footwear with the new boho. Hair is shinier and better cut. Models in general look relaxed and toned, not just very thin. And sustainable cotton and water-only linen is featured everywhere.
Note: I get paid a commission if you buy from the Amazon links on this page (and a big thankyou!)
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My gosh I’m inspired again, all through lockdown I kept thinking “what’s the point “ after reading your blog I said yes yes 🙌 bring it on .
Thank you Joni for bringing it to my notice that spring is here, let’s make the most of it!
So pleased you’re looking forward to life beyond Covid and the start of good weather. After a year like this I feel ready to treat myself to something very summery this year. Thanks for commenting, it’s great to hear from you Lin. Joni x
You might remember that youths of the 60’s-70’s were making a statement against the “keeping up with the Jones’s” attitudes of their elders by adopting denim blue jeans because they were Very cheap and associated with the “working/common man.” Denims were patched, made into skirts, and soon bellbottomed (like the American enlisted (not officer) sailors once wore: California being a coastal state was not unaware of Navy styles, lol. Jeans/denim fashion took off and has stayed a long time.
I made a skirt with great auntie’s old quilt top using the top part of jeans and sewing that patchwork on just below the zipper-bottom: everybody that saw that wanted one too, lol. I was eighteen and beginning my first year of college. (East coast young people took a bit of time to adopt West coast ideas and fashions back then.) I might have made a lot of money had I had more old quilt tops, lol
Well denim is still part of “hippie”/boho, as you might still see a fashionable denim jacket worn over a boho skirt or a denim tiered long skirt with suede flat heeled boots in cooler weather. Also even today boho in fall to winter might include other suede items: jackets bags and skirts. Because Boho in winter is fun too,
As far as looking younger, or worrying that somebody might think I am wearing my own vintage clothes…I have ceased to ponder too much over such nonsense. I wear what I wear because it feels good and looks great to ME.
Who has more right to wear these styles with confidence than we who helped create and popularize them in the first place? Besides, I weighed all of 100 pounds @5’4” when I graduated high school in 1970, lol. Maybe I WOULD wear my own vintage if I still had it and could FIT into it, lol.
Nobody sensible (except me) really cares what I wear, and I don’t care what nonsensible people think. Never was much into “keeping up with the Jones’s,” lol. Seems some Jones’s tried hard to keep up with me tho.
The way I see it, if some stranger/person decides it is not appropriate, unless it is indecent, it is that person that is silly, not me. Besides I get compliments from strangers sometimes: a much younger man (30-40ish?) smiled and told me last winter “I like to see a lady dress like a lady.” What was I wearing on that ordinary winter weekday?
Suede skirt, suede ankle boots, (faux suede of course) mockneck tee and hooded fleece longish cape.) same things I was wearing at home, except the cape. ALL these items cost less than one pair of “premium jeans” worn by all the “true Jones’s “of today. Go figure…
I say, don’t be a “Jones” nor keep up with ‘em. Be happy in your wiser years. Wear comfort with your own style…don’t wear anything that hurts. (Any bra burners out there? Lol)
Nothing looks worse than a limping high-heeled woman struggling to breathe in a too-tight waistband wearing underwire and spanx to fit into some “Jonesy latest fashion” whilst worrying about her blown budget from her latest posh salon visit. The clothes themselves may look wonderful, but SHE is bound to be pinched-faced and uptight because her discomfort and tension will show and/or be SENSED.
THAT is NEVER a good look.
Thanks for your no nonsense site!
Hi KBR, I was a bit of hippy back then too and have made and remade clothes from fabric, curtains, other clothes and so on much of my life. So i loved your comments! Joni x
Hi! Would have been great to see examples on over-50s models!
I agree Fern, but retailers rarely use older models. Joni
I love this! Thank you for putting into words exactly how I feel about style.
Great to hear you enjoy the blog posts Nonni2. Joni
Hi Joni
Just seen your blog and as an old hippy from the 70’s I’m loving reading it!
Just a question about your fitness bracelet. I have one that my husband gave me years ago, but had to stop wearing it as I started to get a skin rash and itching under the bracelet. Probably the synthetic material used. Does yours affect your skin?
So, I live in France as well, maybe we are in the same region…
Hi Glyn. Ah, another old hippy from the seventies!! My fitness bracelet has never given me any irritation at all but we are all sensitive to different things so I can’t promise it will suit your skin. I live in the Charente and on the Riviera near Toulon when I am not in the UK BTW. Joni x
Bonkers Boho? Sounds like me , I live in long dresses with fancy sleeves and in some quite eye popping prints ( African wax prints especially). My son bless him thought l was a bit radioactive in my fabric choices , then again, as a dressmaker l can be my own walking advert
Hi Christina. I LOVE that you have your own confident style. Stay true to yourself and authentically you. Radioactive…love it!! Joni x
Hi, I too was a hippie back in the 70’s when I trailed around Morocco and settled in Spain for a number of years. I still love to wear boho clothes with jeans and suede boots for the winter and floaty tops or dresses in summer. There are also some gorgeous boho tops on Shein Etsy and Temu at the moment that can be worn at any age xx
Hi Linda, thanks for the pointer to those retailers. Joni
I really liked your post although it would be nice to see “ real“ not twiggy 50+ women wearing these clothes. Just a thought!
I agree Michelle but retailers do not use older models – that’s why I try on so many clothes myself for this site and put style notes in other posts. Joni
Hi, Joni. I really enjoyed your blog “Women over 50 boho style” I too love boho style. Not only did I like the “hippie look” of the 70s but I’m in my 70s! Lol! It was for me! I love the variety of it, the uniqueness, the individual expression I can have! It’s me! Thanks for your blog I really enjoyed reading it. I subscribed to your site.
Hi Diane. lovely to hear from you. Glad you like the site! Me too, I’m in my 70’s and was in my hayday (spelling ??) in the 70’s too.
I love when I opet articles like this, and than its all women in 20 something in the pictures. Then I lose my interest to read at all.
Hi Iris. Please see my reply to Karen
Models were not in their 50’s. My put that in the title then?
Hi Karen. I write this blog because it’s almost impossible to find retailers’ models of our age. So I select styles (whatever the model herself looks like) that I believe will suit older women and I often add styling notes specific to our body shapes. I also do many try-ons myself to give readers an idea of how styles look in reality on a women in her mid-seventies, short and overweight.
Thank you Joni
This article has given me the confidence to wear boho fashion again. I still have a short kaftan/kimono style top my parents bought me for my 16th birthday in 1977. I still have it and my aim is to fit into it comfortably again by my 64th birthday this year and wear it on my 40th wedding anniversary this year too. Thank you again.
Loraine
Hi Loraine. Lovely story! All that 70’s kit is back in style now hahaha. Sometimes difficult to get one’s head round it after groaning at wide pants and slouchy jackets for so many years!