Psychology says the women who are genuinely elegant in their 50s and 60s aren’t the ones with the best posture or the right handbag, they’re the ones who stopped explaining themselves in conversations, stopped apologising for taking up space, and started letting long pauses sit without rushing to fill them

The handbag was never the point. The posture was never the point. What people respond to, without always being able to articulate why, is a woman who no longer needs the room’s permission to be in it.