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Mary Portas on her clothing line and dressing boldly

Mary Portas tells Good Housekeeping why she's done a clothing line for women over 40 - and why she's not afraid of fashion.

Mary Portas is well known for helping the high street reach its full potential – one shop at a time. The shopping guru has now even designed her own clothing line for House of Fraser, which she says is aimed at women over the age of 40.

Portas is featured on the cover of Good Housekeeping magazine’s March issue and explains her reasons for wanting to create the clothing line. “Women of this age are genuinely invisible on the high street. Most shops when they are targeting women use 18-year-old models,” she says. “What are we doing here? There must be something unattractive about being old - that's the message, and I think that's a really ugly message. I wanted to create a collection that had women of that age in the campaign and which thought about their bodies and the things that are important to them - what we can highlight and what we don't want to highlight!”

When it comes to dressing herself, she’s not afraid to be a little bit bold every now and then. “I'm 53! You have permission to push boundaries. I call it the mutton moment. It's when women look in the mirror and think 'Can I, can't I?' We need more women to stand up and say it's okay! Confidence comes from you having a sense of yourself,” she tells Good Housekeeping. “It's about really understanding your body, your shape and what makes you feel confident when you put it on. Try to look at the clothes in different colours, but know your basic shape. I come back to that time and time again. I am no good at a vintage layered look. I end up looking like Grayson Perry! No offence, Grayson, it just doesn't suit me.”

Read the full interview in the March issue of Good Housekeeping.

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Posted by Marianne Kaskela.

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