Part of a four-part series on how style changes with age

How does our fashion style change as we get older? With Joan Didion (80) posing for Celine, Italian grannies featuring in Dolce & Gabbana’s current ads and Helen Mirren starring in beauty and fashion campaigns, how mature women dress is suddenly in fashion focus. As we near the end of Bealtaine, the festival celebrating female creativity as we age, four Irish women from 52 to 80 discuss their style over the decades. In part two of this series, we hear from Betty Collins (75), Grandmother of 14.

I have always loved very feminine clothes, with full skirts and lots of petticoats, and I made a lot myself if I couldn’t get them. I used to improvise a lot and wore beehive hairdos.

I designed my own wedding dress in Witchcraft lace and chiffon. It was made by Gavin Friday’s mother, who was a dressmaker. My style is feminine and classic and has remained more or less the same. I only started wearing trousers when I was 35 because it suited my lifestyle as a mother [bringing up four children after her husband’s sudden death] and because fashion had changed. Dresses are easy when you are very slim, but now I wear mainly tops, skirts and trousers.

I didn’t have a lot of things but what I had was good; my mother was the same.I believe in spending money on good trousers, skirts and shoes, and less on tops because they don’t last. I love good bags and look after them. I love jewellery and never go out without my earrings.

Grafton Street was like a fashion parade when I was in my 20s, whereas now the girls are absolutely beautiful but in jeans, T-shirts and trainers, which don’t make the same impact.

I am tall and don’t usually wear black except for a little black dress in the evening. During the day I wear beige and gray and silver. I like silver with anything.

I have had the same hairdresser, Catherine Kennedy, for the past 30 years. She comes to my house to do my hair every week and she cuts it every month.