7 Women Who Wear What They Like – the Over40Collective #iwillwearwhatilike

Once upon a time there were seven women bloggers who lived in all different parts of Blogland. They did not know each other personally and had only chatted to each other through their blogs and social media.

Then one day (exactly one year ago today, in fact) they all met each other in real life and became colleagues and lifelong friends. And so begins the story of the Over40Collective which is officially launching TODAY.

We – the O40Co – are seven fashion and lifestyle bloggers who decided to do something that would make waves in the blogosphere (hopefully we’re making a little ripple to begin with, but we’re aiming for waves…) because we wanted to prove that older bloggers are where brands should be investing their money. One of the most common moans about fashion brands aimed at the 35+ market is that they still use 20-year-old models, and not only that but 20-year-old bloggers for campaigns as well =le sigh=

I wanted to tell this “story” today not only because we are very, very proud to be launching the Over 40Collective today, but because I wanted to show you that a lot can be achieved when women work TOGETHER (yes, in caps!) to support each other rather than tearing each other down.

Via Twitter and email a few of us decided to go to the Blognix retreat in February 2016, and we asked a few more that some of us knew to go – we wanted to see if we could get some more over 40 bloggers to attend a blogging conference which are sometimes known for only being attended by 20-somethings.

Long story short: We got on like a house on fire and we decided to continue the friendship, but we also decided to make our common goals and aspirations into something bigger, something to benefit ourselves, our readership and the brands that we wanted to target.

As we all know older women generally have a lot more disposable income so we wanted to point out to brands that if they wanted to target 40+ women, they should use 40+ bloggers, not Instagram sensations young enough to be our daughters.

How the O40Co can benefit YOU

Although this is primarily a business venture for us to work with brands to bring our readers the clothes, interests and topics that we feel they want to see and read about, we want to eventually create a community that benefits all older women – whether they blog or not.

We have lots of plans up our sleeves for the future, so when the time comes for us to share those plans and start some community projects then we want to tell you all about it…

So as well as signing up to our community, I wanted to explain that this is not only about seven women who wear what they like (I couldn’t be more happy to be working with so many women who not only support me and each other, but also “get” my philosophy of #iwillwearwhatilike without batting an eyelid) – but this is about EMPOWERMENT. We could quite easily have enjoyed each other’s company that weekend, sent the odd tweet afterwards and drifted apart. Instead we created a WhatsApp group and set about changing the world.

(Well okay, maybe that’s a little extreme but you have to dream big!)

So if you want to makes changes, do it together. If you want to simply create a group for friendship reasons or to continue a hobby, do it together. The internet sees too much of women tearing each other down and it’s time we did the opposite.

If you’re with me (us), do sign up to our community and we’ll make waves together!

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The link up: Add your outfits to this week’s link up and if you’ve added a link to here or my button to your post you may be featured next week!

HAVE YOU STARTED ANY SORT OF CLUB, GROUP OR CAMPAIGN WITH OTHER LIKE-MINDED WOMEN?? TELL US ALL ABOUT IT IN THE COMMENTS OR TWEET ME @NOTLAMB!

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Thank you for joining the #iwillwearwhatilike link up! This started as a campaign on Instagram in August 2015 where women over 30 wore everything on a journalist’s list of “inappropriate” items for 30+ women (including leopard print, short dresses and oversized sunglasses. Yes, really). It was so popular that I decided to carry it on weekly where women of all ages link up their fabulous style, never mind what anyone tells them not to wear!

The link up goes live every Monday at 3pm UK time and will stay open for a week. Whilst the original article was of course aimed at the 30+, you can be ANY age to link up. The only criteria is that you’re wearing whatever you damn well like!

An InLinkz Link-up

Linking up etiquette…

CLICK HERE to read the rules of linking up (and to grab the #iwillwearwhatilike button). Basically it’s just good manners to link back to here – to leave a comment is even nicer!

DO SHARE THE LOVE AND VISIT AS MANY LINKS AS YOU CAN (YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT OTHER LOVELY LIKE-MINDED LADIES YOU MIGHT MEET) – THE ORIGINAL INSTAGRAM CAMPAIGN FORGED SOME WONDERFUL NEW FRIENDSHIPS SO DON’T MISS OUT!

P.S. DO CHECK OUT MY PINTEREST BOARD WITH ALL THE BEST OF THE #IWILLWEARWHATILIKE LINK UPS – HAVE YOU BEEN PINNED…?

Photo: Rachel Vogeleisen

Catherine