Photo: @kylerichards18

Style Stealers

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Originally posted at: Kyle Richards’ Green Floral Pants and Yellow Top

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Blogging once felt like a niche corner of the Internet, but midlife women transformed it into something far more powerful. They’ve built spaces rooted in style, substance, humor, and the kind of wisdom only time can teach. Their blogs mirror their lives: thoughtful, expressive, grounded in experience. And as social media grew, they expanded their reach. Their Instagram feeds and Facebook pages became natural extensions of their writing, amplifying the stories they were already telling.

After decades of living, loving, losing, rebuilding, and reinventing, midlife women are proving – decisively – that reinvention has no age limit. Before the Internet, many of these women would have been invisible. Now they have a stage, and they’re using it. They’re stepping into the spotlight, shaping conversations, building communities, and refusing to fade into the background. Visibility isn’t a privilege of the young anymore. We are visible because we choose to be seen – not erased, not sidelined.

These women aren’t just participating in the online world – they’re reshaping it. Their stories ring with resilience, humor, clarity, and an authenticity that can’t be faked. They’ve lived enough of life to know what matters – and they’re finally claiming the space to say it out loud.

And let’s be honest: they look fabulous doing it.

We Embody Style

Whenever a news story refers to a woman in her 60s as “elderly,” I can’t help but laugh. The women I know – online and in real life – are vibrant, stylish, and fully engaged with the world.

Midlife style today is expressive, confident, and gloriously unbothered by anyone else’s expectations. Suzanne Smith of Crazy Blonde Life embodies this beautifully delighting readers with her clothing finds and her unapologetic embrace of personal style. She mixes old and new pieces, patterns and textures, high and low, creating outfits that feel both intentional and entirely her own.

But while her fashion sense may be what first draws readers in, there’s something deeper happening beneath the surface. It’s the freedom to be who you are – and to see that reflected in other women your age. It’s the quiet thrill of recognition, the sense of possibility that comes from watching someone live boldly and beautifully in her own skin.

A Midlife Writer’s View

As a midlife writer myself, I feel a deep kinship with these women. Something shifts at this stage of life: your voice sharpens, your priorities crystallize, and your tolerance for pretense evaporates. You stop writing for approval and start writing from truth.

My own blog, Exploring Life and Death: A Writer’s Journey, offers glimpses behind the scenes of funeral service, along with reflections from a life spent standing close to mortality. It isn’t sensational; it’s grounded in dignity – an invitation to see life more clearly. Many midlife bloggers do the same in their own way: they take the raw material of their lives and turn it into connection.

Midlife brings a freedom – a shedding of the need to please or perform. When I see these bloggers claiming space with total confidence, I recognize the same instinct that drives me to the page: the desire to speak from the center of my life, not the margins. Their presence online widens the path for all of us.

When I went looking for women who spoke to me – women who love books, fashion, travel, wellness, and the rituals that give life more meaning – I found them. Lots of them. Women who are vital, curious, attractive, and fully alive.

One of the clearest examples is Pamela Lamp, whose blog, Who I Met Today, has grown into a vibrant, curiosity-driven platform. Her interviews spotlight people with fascinating careers, unexpected passions, and rich inner lives – proof that inspiration doesn’t fade with age. Her popular podcast continues this mission of connection and storytelling. Recently, she spoke with 86-year-old Sandy Lachenauer, a former Rockette, who shared how an email she once wrote inspired The Spectacular, Fiona Davis’s historical-fiction novel.

Lamp’s journey began with a personal experiment: on her 57th birthday, she pledged to do one new thing every day for a year. That became two, and in 2024 she published Do the Next New Thing, a book born from that experiment.

Before starting her blog, she thought it was too late to develop a second career. “I never imagined in a million years I would write my book, which has led to speaking to women’s groups around the country. It has been the biggest gift,” Lamp said.

Why They Stand Out

Midlife bloggers bring something rare to the digital space: depth. Their content is infused with lived experience – career pivots, caregiving, grief, reinvention, menopause, new love, empty nests, second chances – dismantling outdated ideas about aging and showing what confidence looks like in real time.

Susan Kanoff launched The Midlife Fashionista in 2014 while juggling a demanding social work career and a side gig as a wardrobe stylist. What began as a place to share outfit ideas quickly grew into a platform centered on confidence, beauty, lifestyle, and wellness. Today, her blog has more than 2.4 million views, and her social channels reach over 44,000 followers.

Her journey includes surreal moments – like attending a Chico’s launch party and finding herself seated beside Tracee Ellis Ross and Adam Glassman, Oprah’s personal stylist. She remembers wondering if she belonged there.

“But then it hit me – this wasn’t a mistake. I was exactly where I was meant to be,” said Kanoff. “That moment taught me a powerful lesson: sometimes, the only thing keeping us from fully embracing our worth is the doubt we place on ourselves.”

Another milestone came when she and her daughter, Alyssa, were featured in Soma Intimates’ Mother’s Day campaign – a joyful experience shadowed by the leukemia diagnosis she was awaiting at the time.

The most profound turning point came in 2018, when she shared her cancer diagnosis publicly. Opening up brought a new level of vulnerability – and an overwhelming response from women who reached out with their own stories and fears. In that moment, her platform became more than fashion; it became community. Perhaps the greatest impact of midlife bloggers lies in the communities they build – safe, welcoming spaces where women feel seen, understood, and less alone.

Beyond influencing, Kanoff founded Uncommon Threads – a nonprofit that empowers low‑income women through clothing and self‑esteem workshops – rooted in her belief that clothing can be a powerful tool for confidence and empowerment. What began as a small closet in her social work office has grown into a thriving program serving more than 6,000 women in 2024 alone.

Her story is a reminder of what midlife women already know: when you step into your truth, you don’t just change your life – you change the lives of others.

A Shared Path Forward

Erica Jong once wrote about walking into a party with her 18‑year‑old daughter and realizing, with a jolt, that “she was 18 and I was invisible.” Many women know that moment. But the world midlife women are building online is rewriting that story.

Their courage fuels my own, just as my writing joins the growing chorus insisting that midlife is not a fade‑out but a flourishing.

Midlife women who thrive online aren’t succeeding despite their age; they’re succeeding because of it. Together, we’re rewriting the narrative – one post, one story, one bold act of visibility at a time.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What blogs do you read? Are they hosted by women over 60? What do you learn from them?

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Outside the generous window of this restored 1800s barn apartment, twilight had settled over the Trinity Mountains. A single soulangeana tree glowed pink against the fading sunset, while the white dogwood buds waited to open in the shadows of the tall pines.

Inside, the world was warm, luminous, and alive.

We had spent the evening gathered around an ample wooden table – a piece of history that likely held a century of family stories – the pasta maker turning steadily beneath our animated conversation, flour dusting our fingers as we rolled out and cut the sheets by hand. A birthday celebration. A joyous collision of laughter and steam rising from the pots.

Cleaning Up: More than a Chore

We had eaten well: ravioli with two fillings, a pork roast that had been tantalizing the air all afternoon, sourdough bread, and a green salad. When we had each finished our piece of layered lemon cake (homemade, as it happened), the birthday girl stood and announced she was doing the dishes. I felt a sudden, fierce protectiveness over the magic we had just made.

“No,” I said, my voice firmer than I intended. “Go. Enjoy the rest of your special day. I will take care of everything. I want to do this.”

She looked at me with that playful skepticism we reserve for those being too polite, tilting her head as if weighing whether I meant it. I did. The front door shut softly, and as they strolled homeward under a brilliant canopy of stars, the barn fell into sudden silence.

I stood before a small mountain of dishes, heavy pasta pots, tangled utensils, and wine glasses still holding their crimson rings, alongside small platters dotted with golden crumbs. And in that stillness, a memory I hadn’t thought about in a long while surfaced with the clarity of a mountain stream, carrying me back south to Ukiah.

I Thought of Leeya

Seven or eight years ago, Leeya was the heart of our women’s writing circle. We met at her home monthly to read aloud our poetry and memoirs; vulnerable, raw pieces of ourselves laid out like offerings. Afterward, we shared a light dinner, the room ringing with laughter that came easily after the evening’s intensity.

Every single time we rose to help, we fluttered around her, eager to spare her the labor.

“Leeya, sit,” we would insist. “You’ve hosted us all evening. You must be tired.”

But she would always wave us away with a serene, immovable finality, her eyes aglow with a personal secret.

“No,” she would say. “I love to do this. Truly.”

At the time, I didn’t understand. I assumed it was a hostess’s politeness, an obligation inherited from customs of another era. I couldn’t fathom how anyone could find love in the grease and the scrapings.

But standing there in the Trinities, my hands slipping into warm, soapy water, the realization arrived as unbidden as the scent of wildflowers on the edge of spring.

Cleaning the dishes was more than a chore.

For Leeya, it was the final stanza of the poem.

Creating Order and Remembering the Night

As I wiped flour from the table, I realized that although I was making order, I was also savoring. With every plate I dried, a fragment of the evening returned… the way the candlelight caught the birthday girl’s blue eyes, the particular cadence of a joke told over the rolling pin, the familiar sound of 70s’ LPs from the vintage stereo.

In the hush of the kitchen, the evening unfolded once more.

Every motion – washing, stacking, arranging – pulled echoes from our togetherness into the rhythm of the room. I thought of Leeya in her kitchen, lingering in memories of our literary evening, as she moved unhurriedly through her own.

Through the window left ajar, the forest’s edge breathed March in – wet earth and the faint, sweet promise of fruit trees about to bloom.

I looked at the table, now cleared and ready for tomorrow, and felt certain that all was well in the world.

The quiet ritual of the cleanup is a gift we give ourselves. It is the bridge between the communal fire and the solitary dream. Leeya knew that the work of the hands allows the heart to catch up.

And isn’t it something – how life plants its lessons in us years before we’re ready to receive them?

As I turned off the lights in the barn, I whispered a grateful thank you to her across the years.

I’d finally understood the holiness of the aftermath.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you linger after gatherings to savor the evening? What does this reveal and how does it wrap up the day for you?

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A bunion is a misaligned metatarsal phalangeal joint (the joint that connects the 1st long bone of the foot to the big toe). Bunions often occur when the joint is stressed. Bunions are much more likely to form in women, primarily because women are prone to wear pointed and/or tight shoes. 

Treatment before Surgery

First line treatment for bunions is not surgery. There are many options to try before considering surgery. You can try wearing well-fitted, comfortable shoes. Using a stretching device to stretch your shoes is another option.

Cushioning where the shoe rubs against the bunion could be effective. Using a spacer between the big toe and the second toe may relieve the pain. There are splints and orthotics your physician may prescribe. If all of these options leave you still with disabling pain, surgery could be your next option.

One note: Surgery is a last resort for treatment of bunions. The purpose of surgery is to relieve disabling pain. This is not a cosmetic procedure. In fact, patients may need to wear only certain types of shoes for the rest of their life. If your physician believes surgery is your best option, there are a few different bunion surgeries that could be performed. 

Osteotomy

An osteotomy involves cutting the bones at the metatarsophalangeal joint and realigning them. Then, pins, screws and/or plates are used to keep the bones in place. Sometimes a wedge of bone needs to be removed to properly align the toe.

Arthrodesis

Arthrodesis is also called fusion surgery. This procedure is often done if there is osteoarthritis associated with the bunion. The surgeon removes the arthritic joint surfaces and then fuses the joint with screws, wires or plates. 

Exostectomy

Exostectomy is when the surgeon removes the bump from the joint. This type of surgery is not done often because it does not fix the malalignment that causes the problem. This procedure is instead usually done in conjunction with one of the other bunion surgeries. 

Recovery

After surgery, the patient is sent home with bandages in place, keeping the toe in its correct position. Proper bandage changes are essential to obtain alignment of the toe. Stitches are removed two weeks after surgery. Yet, dressing support or a brace are required for six to twelve weeks.

The foot will have to be elevated as much as possible for a few days after surgery. It depends on the type of surgery done as to how long a patient must have no weight bearing. Keeping off of the foot is accomplished by crutches or a knee walker. A knee walker is a four wheeled device where the knee is placed on a padded cushion and the patient scoots along using the healthy foot.

Following the physician’s instructions during recovery is of the utmost importance if the surgery is to be successful. The chances of bunions recurring after surgery are less than 20%. 

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you have bunions? If so, what type of treatment does your physician advise? Have you had bunion surgery? What was your experience like?

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Style Stealers

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Originally posted at: Dorit Kemsley’s Purple Maxi Dress with Gold Buckle in Italy

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Style Stealers

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Originally posted at: Kyle Richards’ Black Floral Satin Top

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