Fabulous after Forty 2-18-2014

Published: Feb. 18, 2014, 5 a.m.

Are you 40, 50 or beyond, enjoy fashion, but need help knowing what to wear to look stylish and classy and modern? Wondering how to dress so you don’t look like a frumpy old lady or a desperate teenager either? Well, you’ve come to the right place! I’m Deborah Boland, host and publisher of Fabulous After 40 -the go-to place for practical fashion and beauty advice and step-by-step style solutions that you can implement right away…I started this community because I LOVE fashion. All my life I got a kick out of following the latest styles, dressing up, and having lots of fun experimenting with clothes…… but let me tell you, after 40 things changed! Trying to look stylish suddenly became confusing and frustrating. Why? After 40 my body started getting softer and curvier. Clothes didn’t quite fit the way they used to.My lifestyle shifted too. After a 20 year career as an Executive TV Producer/ Host (including my own hit series on HGTV) I was suddenly at home with my 3 small children. I went from dressing up to the nines for meetings and media events to being a full time stay at home living in yoga pants. Trying to get back on the style track and find clothes that were modern and age appropriate, but not dowdy and boring or too teenager- trendy, was very difficult. Where were the stores and designers that catered to hip, mature women who wanted to look chic and fabulous? And where were the style role models over 40? I didn’t see any fashionable women over 40 in magazines, on TV, on the internet, anywhere? Did they even exist?That’s when I decided right then and there that it was all too easy to just give up. I could have said, “Well, I guess I’ve had my time to be a fashionista. It’s over now.” But you know what? That would have been sad. Deborah Boland