What is it with today's fashions? I know it makes me sound old and I don't care. Proud to turn forty this week, I like to think I know a bit about life, about the times when it's good to follow the crowd and the times when it's best to be an individual. You don't get to forty without knowing your own body either, without knowing just what you can wear and what to steer clear of.

Of course, this doesn't apply to all women, only the ones with more than two brain cells and a sense of maturity that reaches beyond a teenagers. Some women panic at the thought of getting older. I don't know, I'm not there yet! But I know that when I do, I won't be panicking. I will be embracing it, altering my style to suit, steering well clear of becoming mutton dressed as lamb.

There is a strong 'emo' feel to today's fashions, even for those who don't necessarily want to wear alternative clothing. Skinny jeans are an emos uniform but they are also the trend for most dedicated followers of fashion. Lucky if you have the legs for it but not for the general population, particularly if they come in lurid shades of tartan!

Also coming from the emo followers we have skinny tee's. The popular name for what, in my book, looks like a funny baby t-shirt. If I washed my husband's t-shirts and they came out looking like a funny baby t-shirt I just know he would not be happy. Of course, I could try telling him he was at the height of fashion but I doubt he would wear that, so to speak.

So, the idea is to wear a pair of jeans that look like they have been sprayed on by a blind artist and team it up with a funny baby t-shirt, topping it off with some dangerous looking accessories such as a spikey belt (could have someone's eye out with those things!) This might be great for those that resemble stick insects and who are under the age of 19, after that you start to look a bit silly. Actually, you look a bit silly while you're doing it but you can't tell young people these days.

Then we have the teenager wannabes. Those horribly sad women who find themselves fast approaching forty when their husband enters the mid-life crisis and dumps them. Feeling washed up and alone, they lose shed loads of weight, visit sun beds until they are orange and start to entertain the trend for wearing what resembles a funny baby t-shirt with the skinny jeans.

This is a sad attempt to recapture their youth in order to make themselves feel attractive again. The women that know this applies to them need to understand that what will make them feel good again is working on their self esteem, not reducing their bodies to what essentially looks like a sun dried prune that would blow away in the wind. The man that left has the problem. He did not leave because you were carrying a few extra pounds or wore clothes befitting a grown up woman instead of a teenager.

The teenagers that follow these trends will, no doubt, grow out of it by the time they are twenty. The women that think they need to go this way, don't do it, you don't need it and it will make you look silly, not young or attractive!