Are you Allowed to Wear a Tomboy Look over 50?

When we were kids, being a Tomboy was considered bad, very bad. Girl’s don’t do that! Boy’s do that! How often did we hear it? Now is wearing Tomboy clothes over 50, not growing up at all or is it called menswear? This post is my personal experience with being a Tomboy in skirts and wearing a Tomboy look over 50.

Contents

Playing “Boys” Stuff as a Kid
Tomboy in Skirt as a Kid
A Tomboy Doesn’t Need Pants
Clothing Preferences Are about Attitude
Tomboy Outfit over 50
Top of the World Style Linkup Party No. 138

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

When you like the blog, you may also want to get my style recipe book How to Dress for Success in Midlife. Buy it now.

Playing “Boys” Stuff as a Kid

First, let me give you a full disclosure. Despite not often wearing a tomboy look over 50, I like to do “boy/men’s things” since my childhood, when I rarely wore the look.

As kids, my sister and I liked to build dams in the drainage digs down to the southeast of the village we grew up in. These channels were anywhere between 1.5 ft (0.46 m) to 3 ft wide. The water depth was about a foot (0.3 m) to a bit over 1.5 ft deep. The digs were about one yard below the level of the adjacent grassland. To get into the area, we had to climb thru a fence at the side of a bridge and then walk down along a large channel. One only could cross the large channel under neath the bridge as it was channeled there to just 2 ft or so.

Doing so was a piece of cake even when wearing a skirt. All we had to do was walking along the trench to the inflow of a small trench. The small trenches were small enough to built a dam that would hold. While walking along a trench, we couldn’t see what’s on the meadows. However, someone on the meadows could see the top of our heads.

Tomboy in skirt as a kid

One day in fall, we came to enhance the height of a dam that we had built the day before. In the trench, the water had piled up behind the dam over night. It was clear that it would spill over the dam in the following night if we wouldn’t increase the dam’s height. Therefore, we started working on putting large twigs into the dig’s bed. At a sudden, a man yelled at us from far behind “Hey boys, stop building dams. It’s forbidden. It will flood the meadows.” We stood up and I jumped over the dig towards my sister to run away.

Then the guy saw that I was wearing a skirt. He realized that we were girls and yelled at us “Tomboys, pull down the dam or I will tell your parents. You should be ashamed building dams as girls. That’s what boys do. And then even in a skirt! I will come back in 10 minutes. Then you have that damned dam down.” His voice was very angry. Then he turned towards the only place where we could leave easily the fenced-in area we were in. “How the heck did he know we were down here?” my sister asked.

over 50 years old fashion blogger wearing a tomboy look with leather pants and a blazer — Outfit details: Tahari one-button blazer, Moda International leather pants, Puma sneakers, silver belt, Oliveo button-down shirt (all own), and baroque pearls c/o Pearls Claps

A Tomboy doesn’t need pants

We went back down into the ditch to destroy our dam. There, I pulled a key stone of our construction. A big fat frog jumped right at me. I screamed and my sister jumped aside. Then the piled up water flew fast thru the place where the stone was before and pulled the dam down slowly. “I wonder how that frog got into the dam.” “You better wonder how we pass that man” my sister replied. “Let’s go. The water will do the rest. We’ll go over the fence at the other side. Let’s walk along this ditch with our torso and head down. That way, he can’t see us before, we reach the fence on the other side. That macho will not expect me climbing over the fence in a skirt, right?” “No, he won’t. He perhaps thinks that only works wearing menswear.” We started giggling.

At the other end of the trench, we climbed over the fence. When we turned around we saw the guy making angry movements because we escaped. “I bet he still wanted to get our names to report us to Mom and Dad” I said to my sister. “You bet! How unfair!”

mature style blogger in chic leather coat and leather pants — Outfit details: Moda International leather pants, Cami silver leather coat, silver Puma sneaker, silver belt, Oliveo chambray shirt, shark gray Modalu Pippa bag, silk scarf, and baroque pearls c/o Pearls Claps

Clothing Preferences Are about Attitude

My sister always preferred wearing pants when she was a kid. I never saw a reason not to wear skirts when we did all kind of tomboy activities. Why was that? As a kid I had no idea and never thought about it. After I was allowed to pick my own clothes, I just wore what I felt great in my skirts and what I liked wearing.

Maybe the attitude a woman can do all things a guy can do, but in heels?

There were many things including wearing jeans which I wasn’t allowed. Another style related thing that upset my folks in my childhood was that I wanted to wear black and leather as a toddler.

What do you think? Is Gamine Style related to being a tomboy?

Another funny thing is that my sister became an engineer and I an atmospheric scientist. She was mainly interested in the construction part of building the dams, while my main interest was the dynamics of the flow.

Tomboy Outfit over 50

Now in my fifties, I still enjoy doing things that were considered “men’s stuff” when I grew up. Science, for instance. However, I still love clothes that clearly indicate I’m a woman. I once in a while like to dress in a Tomboy look, but all pieces must clearly have a female cut. The trench coat, for instance, is tailored at the waist. So are the blazer and button-down shirt. Should women over 50 don a Tomboy look? Why not?! It’s about confidence. Sometimes it helps when you have to put your foot down.

Did you wear skirts or pants as a kid? Did you enjoy doing “boys’ stuff?” Let me know, I’m curious.