Mommy hottest

ttp://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2005–01–26–hotmoms_x.htm
USA TODAY
Mommy hottest
By Olivia Barker, USA TODAY
Irene Slatest, 41, has been wearing basically the same uniform since her
20s: "I'm all about the low–cut (tops), the 3–inch heels, the tight
clothes."
But as she fixed breakfast one morning at home in suburban Long Beach,
N.Y., her daughter, Victoria, noticed something amiss. Hair, makeup and
form–fitting outfit intact and impeccable, Slatest nonetheless stood at
the stove in ... fuzzy slippers.
"Mom, you look like a housewife!" Slatest recalls her 7–year–old
exclaiming.
"I was like, 'Oh, my God, we can't have this,' " Slatest says.
So she finished making eggs in heels.
Mom has come a long way, baby. Of course, she's far beyond the ironed and
buttoned–up June Cleaver archetype. But increasingly she's also moving
past the soccer–mom look of the '80s and '90s. She pays attention to
trends, assiduously avoiding anything pleated, tapered or high–waisted
(the blueprint for the mom jeans memorably lampooned in a Saturday Night
Live sketch). She indulges in a nip here, a tuck there. She stays fit,
even buff.
Mom, it seems, doesn't want to check her sexuality at the picket–fence
gate anymore.
" 'Yummy mummies' we call them in Australia," says Anna Johnson, the
author of Three Black Skirts: All You Need to Survive. "They have kitten
heels, cleavage, and they don't cut their hair short." Johnson, 38 and
pregnant for the first time, hopes to follow the Prada–lined path blazed
by sultry moms such as Uma Thurman. "You're handing your body and your
life over to your baby, but you don't have to hand your style over to your
baby."
Minivan–spurning matriarchs abound in recent pop culture. Stifler's mom
(Jennifer Coolidge) proved quite the seductress in the American Pie
movies. Stacy's mom (model Rachel Hunter) had it going on, complete with
red bikini, in 2003's Fountains of Wayne video. The character of Regina
George's mom in last year's Mean Girls (SNL's Amy Poehler) flaunted her
breast implants from beneath her figure–hugging track suit.
But perhaps the epitome of the mildly naughty nurturer is Desperate
Housewives' Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher), who readily puts her svelte self
on display. Indeed, Hatcher, 40, a single mom herself, coyly poses for the
February covers of Harper's Bazaar (in a dress that dips below the waist)
and laddie magazine FHM (in plunging lingerie). She even made Mr.
Blackwell's best–dressed list for 2004.
Credit Desperate Housewives for fixing the spotlight on come–hither
clothing for the post–lactating set. The look came into stark and sparkly
view on last week's Golden Globes stage, when Hatcher and her largely
fortysomething co–stars, including fellow mom Felicity Huffman in a
cleavage–hoisting sheath, outshone some of their younger Hollywood
colleagues.
"If we are inspiring women to push the edge of the envelope a little bit
.... how fabulous is that?" says the show's costume designer, Cate Adair,
herself a mom.
But the show also is reflecting recent cultural changes. "We were in a
different place five years ago," Adair says. "Some of the rules have
started to get broken." So as low–rise jeans have become the norm, as
people have stopped blinking at the sight of a bare belly, the image of a
mom in a miniskirt and lip gloss simply seems less scandalous.
Not your disheveled mom
Historically, though, motherhood has been about "not looking like you're
on the market," Johnson says. The net effect was to go from being "a
Camaro to a Volvo." Consider Erin Brockovich. "One of the reasons
everybody found her so shocking was that she was a mom wearing a push–up
bra and a baby on her hip, which seemed like an inappropriate accessory,"
Johnson says. The message? "Women can have it all, but they can't dress
like they have it all."
So standard mom clothes serve as a kind of asexual armor. The mothers on
thirtysomething: "Do you remember what any of them wore?" And on Sex and
the City, the show's only mother, Miranda, was its worst dresser, Johnson
argues. "You just imagine losing her at a shop like Bed Bath & Beyond and
not being able to find her."
Of course, mom–as–siren and mom–as–schlump occupy two extremes of the
style spectrum; the majority of moms breeze from the shopping center to
the schoolyard looking perfectly respectable.
Now, though, "mom style" is no oxymoron in part because it's so much
easier to achieve, for both women in the workplace and those who stay
home. For moms accustomed to spending money mostly on their kids, fashion
has become affordable and accessible as mass–market retailers such as
Target offer a little edge. And for those who need outside help, there's
the forthcoming book Frumpy to Foxy in 15 Minutes Flat: Style Advice for
Every Woman, which devotes a chapter to rescuing mousy moms from their
unhip selves.
The shrinking generation gap, including the fact that moms increasingly
gravitate toward their daughters' closets and jewelry boxes, is "one of
the biggest changes in consumer behavior in the past five years," says
Marshal Cohen of the NPD Group, a market research firm. These women "cross
over. They're interested in current styles, not styles specific to an age.
They don't want to dress in their mothers' housedresses anymore."
It has gotten so that sometimes daughters' tastes are more conservative
than mothers', especially considering the relatively matronly styles that
have dominated runways of late. For instance, Slatest, a freelance makeup
artist, would love to buy her daughter "funky little leopard–print skirts,
and she's like, 'That's so not me.' She says, 'Mom, you're funky. I'm not
funky.' "
Slatest's is a generation unwilling to give up many of the trappings of
youth, not just chic clothes. They want to listen to rock 'n' roll into
retirement and splurge on the latest electronic gadgets. Abercrombie &
Fitch might be marketed to teens and college kids, but Cohen points out
that 45– to 50–year–olds are scooping up the trendy togs, too. Likewise,
the Honda Element was designed for 25–year–olds, but 45–year–olds are
buying the boxy cruiser "even more so."
"Clothing and style does not discriminate according to age like it used
to," Cohen says.
Sculpting the mom
Take Michelle Card, who strode through Tampa International Airport
recently wearing a deep tan and an even deeper V–neck shirt. With her long
blond layers, French pedicure and low–slung jeans, Card, 33, "looks more
like a teenager," concludes one of her two sons, Matthew, 10.
A lot of her friends seem similarly more suited to sit in a high school
class, not teach one. "They don't want to look older just because they're
moms," says Card, an executive at a non–profit organization in Hernando
Beach, Fla. "They don't want to let i

In article <ctejtj$ck...@reader1.panix.com>, Adrav <nos...@nospam.com>
wrote:
I missed the memo about turtlenecks; when am I supposed to start wearing
them, again? (I'm 41, and I can't STAND turtlenecks...)