When someone asks me my age I have to think for a moment. Then it hits me. I’m 56. But I can’t be. Fifty-six is old. It’s twinsets and sensible shoes; it’s having short, greying hair and talking about pensions and looking forward to grandchildren.
Stop the bus! How did I get here? I am hip and with it. I go to festivals. I have kefir for breakfast. And I am technologically young at heart, too. I know my way round my smartphone.
The trouble is, however many years younger I feel on the inside, the outside rather gives the game away. In terms of fashion and grooming, I am stuck in a rut, and a lazy one at that.
Like many midlife women who have spent decades with not a moment to spare between working and raising a family, I reach for the same old failsafes. Trouser suits for workwear, stretchy mum jeans, trainers or FitFlops in summer.
As for make-up, I’m either lazily barefaced (and now I’ve seen these pictures, that really has to change, if only out of consideration for those around me) or garishly shoehorned into bright red lippy and eyeshadow for going out, all from Boots No 7 because that’s what I bought when I was 17.
What I need is help to look as young as my gig-loving, Insta-posting inner self feels. I use the artificial intelligence app ChatGPT for everyday conundrums like what are the best veggies for a stir-fry or the coolest restaurants in south London. But my nephew used it to break up with his girlfriend.
Perhaps I can use it to break up with my old life, my ingrained grooming habits and wardrobe? I am going to leap out of my rut and surf the information highways for routes to a new youthful glow.
First things first. I know it’s all about the ‘prompt’ when it comes to AI and how detailed a question you ask of it. So I type very carefully: ‘I am 56 but I don’t feel it. I have two children aged 24 and 22 with my beloved husband of 27 years, who is about to turn 60. How do I best use you to get me out of my rut?
Hair and make-up before: I’m either lazily barefaced or garishly shoehorned into bright red lippy and eyeshadow for going out, writes Susannah Jowitt
Hair and make-up after: If I look ten years younger, it’s probably down to having ‘someone’ else make ‘glow-up’ decisions I’d otherwise agonise over, writes Susannah
‘I want to make myself look younger than my actual age. I want to be hip without being embarrassing, but also true to the painfully-earned lessons I’ve learned about what flatters my curves – no collars, boxy outlines or baggy cover-ups.
‘I am a UK size 18, but am quite toned and defined. With your help, I want to be as sleek, playful and colourful as I am in my head.’
The first response: ‘That’s a powerful question you’re asking,’ says the bot. ‘And asking it already puts you ahead of most people who feel stuck.’
I feel lit-up with self-righteousness. ‘The way to get out of a rut at 56 isn’t about pretending to be younger, it’s about living younger by refreshing your environment and building momentum in small, meaningful ways.’
It asks me to upload photos, full-length, from the side, and close-up headshots in natural light. I submit snaps of my favourite outfits, where I think I look good, like my bottle-green jumpsuit with a low zip that shows off my boobs.
In a way that I never would with a friend or a personal shopper, I also send in pictures of me in a bikini, so that it can see the full scale of my spare tyres. ‘You look fantastic!’ is the response. ‘I can already see your signature: bold colour, joyful styling, confident neckline and a natural warmth and energy that shines through in every picture.’ I almost blush.
Then it asks me to picture the woman I want to become, using three words that describe the fantasy future me. ‘Curious, alive, impressionable,’ I write, after a moment. Then it asks me what sort of outfits I want to start with.
‘Let’s start with something cool and casual for day,’ I reply. ‘Plus one elegant outfit for a low-key night out and one all-out sparkly dress-up outfit. Remember, I want to look ten years younger.’ I’m beginning to feel excited – despite the ridiculous soft-soaping. ‘Your instincts are spot on,’ it fawns.
‘The goal here is polished, modern, alive, not teenager-ish. This is “I’m awake and engaged” dressing.’ Then it snaps into action and within seconds, unrolls a style blueprint for my Next Chapter Wardrobe. ‘A silhouette of curvy top and defined vertical eye draw,’ it starts. I’m confused. What the heck is a vertical eye draw?
‘…Smooth lines, curve definition, enhanced by contrasting fabrics that drape with youthful movement not ageing stiffness,’ it continues. ‘Necklines that flatter the chest and elongate the neck: V-necks, scoop necks, asymmetric knits, zip fronts, wrap and faux wrap…’
I hope the ‘ageing stiffness’ is ChatGPT paying lip service to my stated hatred of boxy shirts rather than an unexpected reference to my aching joints, but I get the gist: the vertical eye draw must mean a lean silhouette and my ideal dress would be V-necked, not fussy and probably a wrap-style.
As for the colour scheme, the bot suggests ‘jewel tones in colour blocks – deep greens, fuchsia, teal, reds, cobalt – not beige or sensible blue: no dusty pastels, fiddly prints, polka dots or horizontal lines’.
All fair enough but hardly a revelation. It goes on: ‘Playful elements, where your personality wakes up: interesting sleeves, youthful double denim, a slight sheen or sparkle, a cheeky shoe.’
A cheeky shoe? This makes me laugh – and blows the illusion of AI’s expertise. Large language model AIs such as ChatGPT can only mimic what it scrapes from the internet without truly understanding what it’s saying. Human fashion editors might write about a ‘cheeky’ cami top worn under a suit jacket, but no one would ever talk about a ‘cheeky shoe’.
The bot is still pouring out fashion advice: ‘Sleek elements: leg-lengthening straight or wide-leg trousers, clean tailoring: no fattening tiers or layers, just the occasional playful ruffle that doesn’t mess with the silhouette. You’re creating tension between polish and fun – that’s where style lives.’
SUSANNAH’S OUTFIT CHOICE: ‘I am a UK size 18, but am quite toned and defined. With your help,’ Susannah ask Chat GPT, ‘I want to be as sleek, playful and colourful as I am in my head’
CHATGPT OUTFIT CHOICE: Susannah in a gold sparkly jacket from M&S (£52), which the AI pairs with a pair of heavy cream, wide-leg tailored trousers (£46) from the same shop
OK, Chatti, a multi-tiered ra-ra skirt would be a youthful step too far, but let’s give you the benefit of the doubt on the rest of it. ‘Please apply this blueprint and scan the current collections of M&S and Zara,’ I type. And, just like that, I have a shopping list.
There’s a delightful pink peplum outfit from Zara (£59 for the blazer, £49 for the trousers) but I can’t find it in the shop and think it might be from a summer collection – more proof of AI’s tendency to get things wrong.
Then there’s a gold sparkly jacket from M&S (£52), which the AI pairs with a pair of heavy cream, wide-leg tailored trousers (£46) from the same shop. I suddenly dream of looking like my idol, Ted Lasso actress Hannah Waddingham.
A very slinky, green velvet column of a dress with spaghetti straps from Zara takes the youthful prescription too far but, to its credit, AI pairs it with a more forgiving chunky mustard yellow cropped knit. Maybe this could work.
There are also a couple of howlers that I shrink back from in horror.
An M&S ‘ditsy floral ruched midaxi waisted dress’, all flounces and a tent-like shape in murky blue.
A lot of black satin blazers that are collared and too cliched for words and – ye gods – a ‘lace sequin’ minidress from Zara (£69.99) in horizontal zigzags of sequin and brown that would make me look like a suet pudding.
These are binned immediately and ChatGPT roundly admonished. Can you imagine making a friend wear that? Hmmm. I’m not enormously impressed by this, but decide to let AI loose with my beauty routine, too.
I haven’t changed my hairstyle in decades and am hopeless at putting on make-up. There’s a theory that most women in their 50s have the same haircut they started getting at the age of 12; while I flirted with many a bouffant Toyah quiff in my teens, this is true of me since I was 18.
No problem, says the bot, stick with me. By now, it’s beginning to feel like a permanently optimistic best friend with only solutions and no opinions.
Despite its patchy fashion sense, I do love its unwavering belief in me. I upload five photos showing my hair both up and down and ask what I need to do with it. All my friends tell me I have to go shorter – long hair is ‘very ageing’ – but I’m not going to tell my new digital friend that, just in case it agrees.
‘You’ve got a great starting point,’ the bot enthuses, ‘warm blonde tones, thick hair with natural lift and a face that looks amazing with a bit of movement around it. The goal here isn’t to reinvent you, it’s to modernise the shape and soften the lines to get that “56 going on 46” effect.’
I feel like someone in a Good Morning Britain makeover segment. Or Kirstie Allsopp talking about a tumbledown semi-detached in Love It Or List It.
In six points, it tells me I don’t need to shorten it – huzzah – but could just reshape it, asking my hairdresser for a ‘medium-long cut with long layers, plus face-framing pieces starting at cheekbone level’.
I could, it says, even consider a long fringe, adding softness around the eyes and making the whole style seem intentional and modern. Or is this its polite way of telling me I have forehead wrinkles and should be getting Botox?
For up-dos, it’s at its most helpful yet. I have to go neater and lower, it says bossily, avoiding my usual scraped-back high bun in favour of a low, looser twist using a crab clip or U-shaped pins, which it then sketches out in steps so simple that even I can’t mess it up.
For parties it gives me a foolproof three-step approach using only two products: volume mousse for the roots and a serum for the ends. This is all surprisingly specific and useful. It even shows me how to blast the crown area against my side parting, so that when it naturally flips back, it will have lift and a swoop to it.
Hair now looking like Reese Witherspoon, it’s time for the slap upgrade. I own one shade of lipstick which I only ever wear at parties or the concerts I sing at, and people have been known to express alarm at how startlingly bright red it is.
ChatGPT asks me to upload a smiling picture taken in natural light and concurs, telling me sternly that harsh shades are not my friend. A warm rosy pink is what I need, in a satin finish with only a central dab of gloss.
It even produces a handy list of recommended products, though the Charlotte Tilbury Rose Kiss that comes out top has, sadly, been discontinued.
The other suggestions include No 7 Honey Bloom (£14.75), Clinique Peony Pop (£26.50) and a deeper pink-berry shade in the evening: Nars DolceVita (£25.50) or Clinique Plum Pop (£26.50).
What about the rest of my face? I’ve always wanted to do myself a smoky eye but what’s the point when my annoyingly middle-aged eyelids now sag down, covering all the artistry? ChatGPT scoffs at my doubting talk.
‘Age and slightly droopy lids are not a barrier to a gorgeous smoky eye! You’ll just adapt the technique to lift and open the eye rather than burying the shadow in the socket. Below is a step-by-step guide geared for mature eyes and for people who don’t love fiddly make-up.’
Alas, it now gets very technical on me, laying out a list of six tools and products I need to buy, from primer, brow-enhancing pencils and mascara, to a raft of brushes and many paragraphs about the eyeshadow palette I now need – not black but softer shades of charcoal, brown or slate grey.
Then there’s a ten-step tutorial for a 15 to 30-minute ‘lifted smoky eye’, with extra tips for droopy lids and mature skin. Half an hour just on eye make-up? Is it kidding? I barely take half an hour on party preparation as a whole.
I ask for a shorter five to eight- minute ‘morning’ version with a pictorial guide as well. It still looks to me like one of those cookbook recipes which allow five minutes for chopping and peeling six types of veg and deboning a chicken, but I’ll trust the process.
A respectable ten minutes later, I have something approximating a smoky eye on both left and right. No, the eyes don’t quite match up, but that will come with practice: for now I could perhaps just show half of my face at a time in a suitably Gen-Z posturing way.
I proudly call my 24-year-old daughter to come upstairs and have a look. ‘Yeah, smoky eyes are quite old-fashioned now,’ she says and then sees my face fall (even further than the eyelids). ‘But who cares?’ she adds. ‘You’re looking great at the moment. Why do you suddenly look younger?’
I used to use AI simply as a lazy alternative to trawling through an internet search, and laughed at the Gen-Z TikTokkers who ask it practically to run their lives. But perhaps they’re on to something.
Even if it wasn’t quite the wand-twirling fairy godmother I wanted, the process of asking my AI friend for its considered, mega-terabytes’ worth of judgment felt like a positive move.
The current generation of AI bots are so relentlessly upbeat and unjudgmental that it’s like having a personal cheerleading team at the click of a button: better for the ego than a changing room mirror, that’s for sure.
If I look ten years younger, it’s probably down to having ‘someone’ else make ‘glow-up’ decisions I’d otherwise agonise over.
So if you see a woman in her mid-50s this Christmas sashaying past you in a jewel-coloured, V-necked slinky dress, with an actressy hair flick, rosy pink lipstick and a slightly mismatched smoky eye, it’s probably me. The cheeky shoes will be the clincher.
