Dear Ladies:
“Act your age” has been said to many a recalcitrant child.
Now we wish to add another demand: dress your age.
Ladies, simply because your dressmaker allows you to wear a gown does not mean it is appropriate for you to do so. You are not in the first blush of youth any longer; please leave the first-blush-of-youth gowns to the ladies who are in the first blush of youth.
Without pointing out exactly which blush of youth you might be in (The forty-seventh? Too many to count?), we would respectfully ask that you refrain from wearing anything that would make your mutton seem lamblike.
Act your age by dressing your age.
The Fashionable Foible