We are Five! Happy Birthday everyone!

Image from Jane Brockett’s lovely www.yarnstorm.blog.com

Blimey, time goes fast in the blogging world….Happy Birthday to us because we are five years old this week! Our first blogpost went up on October 13 2008, sounding positively upbeat just as the economic world crashed around our ears and we’ve been chatting to you daily ever since. We weren’t the first bloggers in the universe by a long shot, but it sure feels a long, long time ago since we started and we’ve covered a LOT of ground since then….

And we’ve come some way in achieving what started out wanting to do, that is make a noise about grown up women who like us, wanted something different from what their mothers had to settle for as they hit their mid life. We don’t want to disappear off the fashion, work and culture radar and although there is a long way still to go, things are changing.

In beauty, we’re almost overwhelmed by all of the Anti-Ageing products aimed at our market -and please can we drop the ANTI? Let’s try celebrating age from now. Fashion has been slower but we’re seeing older models used more frequently -thank you Lanvin, American Apparel, Marks & Spencer, Cole Haan, Winser, Saint Laurent, Karen Walker and others, although we’d like to see more. Retailers are a little slower off the mark getting their design-act together, although a general swing towards quality product and more considered grown up style as a trend has helped. But where’s our Topshop for grown ups? It’s been five years…how long does it take for the penny to drop? We want lovely fashion-y clothes at a good price AND WE HAVE MONEY. Honestly, soon we’ll just have to do it ourselves!

Our agenda has expanded from talking about mostly clothes, to the bigger one of grown up women in the working world. Feminism #3 has helped us shout a bit louder about how it’s not just younger women who get discriminated against and we find ourselves standing right beside our daughters shouting for equality. It’s exciting to be part of what feels like a big shift, while acknowledging the importance of a great statement necklace.

But we wouldn’t be anywhere without you, dear fabulous readers, so please consider yourselves invited to the (virtual) birthday party, as we toast the past five years and hope for even more fabulous things from the next five.

Thanks for reading, thanks for sticking with us over the years and providing such heartwarming, funny and interesting comments. We have readers all over the globe now (hello Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, New York, The Middle East, Japan and South Africa) and readers who like us enough to come and meet us in person, as you did at our recent Salon (we’re definitely doing more of those). We’re lucky to have you all and there’s still so much more to say! Happy Birthday all!

Image shamelessly stolen from one of our favourite blogs Yarnstorm