Opinion Living between the lines

“It’s obviously self-mocking,” Dolgoff said. “I was no supermodel to begin with.” She resembles an earthbound cross between two Julias — Roberts and Louis-Dreyfus — not a terrible combination,with one floral tattoo on an ankle and another atop her shoulder.

This being the aughties,what started as a joke with a colleague blossomed into a website,formerlyhot.com,in 2008. Within two posts on her blog,which now attracts 30,000 visitors a month,Dolgoff said,five agents got in touch,and a book idea was born.

But what to wear on a book tour,assuming you’re not among the 20-under-40 set? Ms. Dolgoff’s closet — a narrow but deep space — presents a compact illustration of Formerly aesthetic and sartorial challenges.“I do go a little overboard on the shoes,” she confessed. “But there’s no room in your closet for self-recrimination at this age.”

The closet was ground zero for Dolgoff’s “crisis of fashion,” the moment several years ago when she realised her clothes weren’t working: She had put on a leather skirt purchased five years earlier,and,she recounted: “I couldn’t tell if I looked like downtown rocker girl or like I was upholstered in Jennifer leather. It didn’t quite feel right,but I wasn’t ready to get rid of it.”

Dolgoff has since cleared her closet of its leading offenders. “Trends are for little kids,” she said dismissively. “You can easily go from expressing certain aspects of yourself to looking like you’re in a Halloween costume.” And while she is susceptible to flowing blouses and skimpy dresses that cling in certain permissible places,she has a keen sense of bad ideas. Animal prints are OK at 20 or 60,but for 40-somethings,they raise all kinds of unseemly “cougar” questions. “What makes retro look cute is the discrepancy between the person’s age and the era it came from,” she said. “If you were alive during the time the look was first in vogue,it can look as if you’ve saved your outfit for all these years.”

No matter how poorly you pull off the ’80s revival (“plaid skirts with safety pins are probably not a good idea”),Formerlyhood also has benefits: professional,parental and,generally,interpersonal. On the plus side: no longer having to keep up with the latest restaurant and bars. Formerlies,typically mothers of young children,haven’t the time or energy to go. And your friends won’t care. Women this age tend to be a lot more forgiving than they were as high school BFF’s and college roommates. In any case,Formerlies,Dolgoff explained,are more comfortable in their own skin and no longer depend on other peoples’ judgments. You no longer have to be annoyed at being ogled by strange men on the street.

Then again,you no longer are ogled by strange men on the street. In her book,Dolgoff recalls a morning commute in which an attractive man asked her the time. “Eight-forty,” she replied tersely. And then,nothing. No longer the sexy young thing who had to adopt “a slightly defensive posture when men asked her superficially innocent questions on public transportation. I was no longer ‘all that,’ perhaps no longer even a little of ‘that,’ whatever ‘that’ is.”

So what happens when you’re no longer a Formerly? Are you just plain old? “I’m not there yet,” Ms. Dolgoff said. “But I think the next stage is taking the best part of being a Formerly — focusing on your own happiness rather than fitting into someone else’s version of womanhood — and running with it.” Meanwhile,her greatest challenge is shoes. “You do need to be able walk. I’m done sacrificing to look good. I don’t want to hurt anymore.”