Pity poor female baby boomers

What to do with the hapless souls who happen to be baby boomers – female ones, that is – today? We won't even consider the lot of women somewhat more senior. I'm talking clothes. Have you looked into any fashion magazines lately?

Everywhere it's tube tops, slip tops, slip dresses, halter tops. If you're lucky, it's one shoulder bare. Now how many women in their 40s and 50s are going to be happy, baring that portion of their anatomy that withstands the test of time least well. There are of course the exceptions of those worthy women who have been working out regularly over the decades.

What's a working-woman to do? Content herself with a neat little suit? Be like Hillary Clinton who worked through six pants outfits while campaigning, all in black, all figure concealing? Nowadays in the Senate, she and her fellow female colleagues seem to stick to pastel suits as timorous in their cut as their color.

Check out the current June issue of Vogue for yourself. The opening full double page ad for Gap sets the tone: long-haired young woman in a scoop-necked sleeveless white top stopping a couple of inches short of her jeans leaving a nice bare belly exposed. A couple of ad pages further on, just a torso shot of a white tank top leaving the obligatory two inches of bare belly above jeans with a large American flag as belt buckle. And the next double page ad shows a rather slatternly young woman slouched in the front seat of an automobile, her yellow tank top bearing the words Calvin Klein Jeans and the large initials CK. Her bottom is covered by a very brief pair of jeans.

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But then we get to the meat of the magazine. The fashion spreads, in short. Sixteen full color pages, all double spreads doing a take off of, as Vogue puts it, "fantasy fashion, inspired by reality TV." The point of inspiration coming from "Survivor" and "Temptation Island," which means men and women, young and lithe, in sundry beach garb starting with a $230 bikini going along to my favorite: "Tug of War Leads to Dirty Tricks."

This spread shows two women and a man covered with mud, hurling mud at one another. They are cunningly described, keeping up with the "Survivor" mode, as members of the "Ownafendi" tribe and "Gotagucci" tribe. Their clothes: A $325 Celine tortoise-print bikini top plus a daisy-print pair of shorts from Piazza Sempione for $310.

We turn then to a feature on these "Survivor"-type shows illustrated with a spread of Henri Rousseau's 1910 painting "The Dream" with a quote from Henry David Thoreau: "In wilderness is the preservation of the world." The very next page show semi-naked young women scantily clad in Christian Dior Haute Couture by John Galliano – haute couture prices start in the four-figure bracket. The read-out on the page: "There's an orgy of exhibitionism, a voraciousness of voyeurism."

Vogue's fashion pages conclude with "Oh, Pioneers." Or, as the text on its opening page describes it: "With mutton sleeves and broad skirts flying, our heroine joins the wagon train. It's Vogue's ode to the upcoming 'Frontier House' – high fashion at home on the range." And rarely have more silly fashion pictures been seen.

But you take my point, I trust. Where at any price are the clothes for the average Vogue reader, an affluent woman in her mid-'30s, let alone for women of more modest means?

The issue also happens to carry a first-rate profile of Laura Bush, who comes across as a woman not really very concerned with fashion. There's certainly nothing in this issue to change her thinking on the subject.

What's an aging female baby boomer to do? Start working out regularly, I guess.