Jess Cartner-Morley has been the Guardian’s fashion editor since 2000. She is online now answering your questions from tips for the well-dressed man to trouser fastenings

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FlusteredCustard asks: When I was younger (44 now) I thought older women who stuck to fashion formulas from when they were young looked vaguely silly and thought staying up-to-date, no matter your age, was the key to style. Now I am older, I find the clothing adopted by younger people to be what looks vaguely silly, and tend to dress according to my own, no doubt frozen, formulas. Where does the balance lie? Is there such a thing as mutton-dressed-as lamb?

Jess:

Ha! I am 53 so I’ve been debating this for a while! I do believe that staying current is part of what being chic is about. At the moment, for lots of people in their 40s and 50s, this is about wearing a looser silhouette than we are used to. Your clothes say a lot about you, and I guess one of the things that I want mine to say is that I’m looking at and engaged with the world around me even at my advanced years. I’d probably rather be mutton dressed as lamb than mutton living in the past?

I feel about high street shopping the same way I feel about social media: I lived through the bit when it was feel-good and optimistic and now it’s gone a bit nasty and it makes me sad. I miss the old Topshop so bad! Although they do have some good stuff again now, plus you can buy there without the money going to PG which is good. The silver lining of this though is that many of the younger shoppers who, as you rightly say, are priced out of the ‘haute high street’ stuff are shopping from car boot sales or on Vinted instead.