They say women disappear with age, but if that’s true, why do their necklaces keep getting bigger?
Society shuns women with crow’s feet and crepey underarms. And honestly, I get it. Aging is grotesque. That’s where I come in.
I give voice to the voiceless. When a middle-aged woman walks into Reformation, the salespeople barely blink. But if she wears a large mustard-yellow acrylic choker designed by a Scandinavian architect? She exists!
You may have seen me wrapped around the neck of Isabella Rossellini, or strewn on a nightstand beside a bold-colored pair of cat-eye reading glasses and a copy of Miranda July’s All Fours. You most definitely have seen me at the MoMA Design Store.
Sometimes I turn up at an independent bookshop adjacent to an heirloom tomato candle. Why do bookshops sell oversized jewelry and vegetable-scented wax? Because, like middle-aged women, they’re also desperate to remain relevant.
I can be made of prewar German beadwork, fair-trade tagua shells, or eighteen miniature jewel-toned cinderblocks. I’m often chartreuse. And, I’m always angular—much like the collagen-starved face of any woman wearing me.
My bright hues are flashy for a reason—they’re an emergency flare for physicians: Hey, Doc! Maybe don’t dismiss this woman’s chest pain as “just stress.”
My pointy edges aren’t just stylish. They’re a beacon to waitstaff: Yes, this woman is embracing her gray. She also wants to embrace the ramekin of ranch you promised you’d bring ten minutes ago.
I’m a staple in the perimenopausal starter kit, along with biotin chews, red-light-therapy masks, and a well-targeted ad for a neutral linen tent dress.
Why am I so beloved by women of a certain age? No one knows—since women’s health research is still funded like it’s a neglected sidepiece—but one thing’s clear: Declining estrogen directly correlates with an increased desire to wear gargantuan Mondrian-inspired necklaces made from Lucite.
What’s Lucite, you ask? A fancy name for plastic. And if plastic gets a rebrand, why can’t menopausal women? Cougars, crones, priestesses, and dowagers—they all eventually replace the dainty gold necklaces of their youth with me.
Consider the two paths women have before them as they slog ever closer to eating dinner at 4 p.m.
Option One: Age naturally. Think Pamela Anderson and Diane von Furstenberg—women with good bone structure and giant fortunes. Or a generic señora from Spain who spent a lifetime eating olive-oil-soaked rough bread. Someone earthy who grew up with horses. I don’t mean riding horses; I mean lived in a barn among horses.
Option Two: Join the Medspa Industrial Complex. Spend your 401K on a single salmon sperm facial. Chainsaw, shrinkwrap, and Vitamix your face. Results vary. You could end up an eighty-year-old MILF on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Or a space-obsessed billionaire’s latest wife with air mattress lips, pom pom eyelashes, and a bloodthirsty appetite for the proletariat.
I’m the happy medium. The accent wall of changing up your look. Less drastic than transforming your face into a disfigured Picasso painting. Less lonely than living out your last days as a makeup-free Mother Ayahuasca in a national park.
I do have critics. Some complain I’m too bold. They prefer my softer art museum gift shop bestie: the drapey silk neckerchief printed with Van Gogh’s Irises. Sure, it hides hormonal acne like a champ. But turn heads? I think not.
Others say I’m not bold enough and haven’t cracked the invisibility code. No woman has won the US presidency, they say. True, you’re more likely to hear my ruby red Murano glass beads clank against a charcuterie board at a second divorce party than you are to hear them shatter the glass ceiling. But those candidates never gave me a chance. Instead, they played it safe—with pearls!
Despite critiques, I’m still a middle-aged woman’s best shot at making a splashy entrance, whether at a bone density scan or a seminar on sustainable horticulture.
Like the women who wear me, I know I may one day be replaced. In my case, with an even louder accessory—a medical alert fall-detection necklace. Until then, I’ll jingle, jangle, and refuse to go gentle into that good night.
