Every time I find a makeup or moisturizer I love, the company discontinues the brand to replace it with something "improved" and, ahem, more expensive. So there I was at Macy's, bemoaning my ill-fortune, when I got to talking with one of the cosmetic counter executives. Before long, as often happens when baby boomers 50 plus collide in public, we had soon spilled much of our life stories--going way back to when we both spent the same summer backpacking through Europe (think 60's...)

It was balmy in Orlando…all tropical and business casual at MPlanet last week—and not a single aloha shirt in sight.

Yet again, the universe has tilted on its axis, and we barely noticed.

I remember my husband, Dan’s, first aloha shirt. It was in the early 90’s and yes, predictably, it was in Hawaii. It had a green background and oversized fuchsia and yellow flowers. Having come up through the serious make-it-happen 80’s wearing regulation business greys, blacks and whites, Dan found this—the first of many aloha shirts—to be liberating. What wasn’t predictable back then was his daring, yay, virtually revolutionary integration of the aloha shirt into his wardrobe. That shirt went to dinner parties, business casual events, concerts and meetings. It was fresh, youthful: a statement that one had cast away convention and was now a force with which others must contend.

Gens X and Y adulate their boomer elders’ fashion sense. They copy their styles. Study their photos and closets seeking inspiration and guidance. They aim to please.

For the rest of today's blog, continue at the Boomer Blog

There’s a lot of money spent on fashion by boomers, so it behooves the fashion retail industry to understand boomer mentality and tastes. But when a boomer man throws on an aloha shirt and calls it a day; and a boomer woman does all her shopping at Chico’s and thinks that staying on the cutting edge means buying a new piece of bling, it’s perhaps time for fashion marketers to show some leadership, as well.

For the rest of today's blog, continue at the Boomer Blog

In part two of this blog series, we addressed the lack of transition from the hippie fashion freedom of the leading edge of the generation’s formative years to the “dress for success” rules of their passage into the workforce. For many boomers, this represented a leap into the fashion abyss, from which they’ve never quite recovered.

For the rest of today's blog, continue at the Boomer Blog