17 Pink Valentine’s Outfits for Women Over 50 That Feel Romantic

A pink sweater with dark wash jeans is the easiest casual pink Valentine's outfit there is, and you may already own both halves. The real question is whether it looks like lunch with friends or like a date. The yarn decides that more than the cut.

Cashmere and mohair both come from goats, and they wear very differently. Fiber thickness is measured in microns. A thinner fiber feels softer. Cashmere measures 12 to 18 microns and mohair 25 to 45, so cashmere is the softer one against your neck, with a quiet sheen. Mohair is the shiny one, known as "the diamond fibre."

Mohair also resists creasing and pilling. Cashmere is more delicate, pills more easily and usually costs more, because it's rare and combed by hand.

My honest pick for a dinner out is a pink mohair sweater. That halo of shine does the dressing-up a silk blouse would, before you've put on a single earring. Choose cashmere if softness at your throat matters more to you than sparkle.

Then pull out the darkest jeans you own: no fading at the knees, hemmed so they clear your shoe.

Wear pink in one piece and let the rest go quiet. Fabulous After 40 suggests pink as an accent over neutral basics, such as a blazer, a cardigan, a handbag or a pair of shoes. Its neutrals are camel, grey, navy, chocolate brown, cream and black.

The mistake it warns against is wearing several matching pink pieces at once. Put a pink cardigan with a bag and shoes in the same shade and the outfit stops looking chosen. It starts looking issued.

If you're torn between two pink pieces, wear the one that sits closer to your face and leave the other in the closet.

A black turtleneck under the dress covers your arms and neck, so the pink reads warm and polished instead of sugary.

If it feels daring, it's one of fashion's oldest moves. A museum in Bath, England, holds an evening gown from the early 1860s in pink silk moiré trimmed in black velvet and black lace.

"Pink brings the femininity, black brings the strength, and together they create a combination that feels both powerful and incredibly chic." Toronto personal stylist Vlada Victoria, in Raydar Magazine

Then come the tights, where a date night outfit and a February night pull in opposite directions. Denier tells you how thick the yarn is. Hosiery maker Fogal defines it as the weight in grams of 9,000 meters of yarn, so the higher the number, the thicker the leg. Fogal recommends 10 to 20 denier for evening wear and 50 to 100 for winter warmth.

On a cold night I'd take the warmth. With a black turtleneck on top, opaque black legs look deliberate: one long line of black framing the pink. Save sheer for a night when someone drops you at the door.

Swap stark white for ivory and pink gets kinder to your face. Chi Li, who writes the blog Petite Dressing, recommends "soft ivory over stark white for winter dressing," because pure white "can reflect a very harsh light onto the face, which often highlights fine lines."

I notice it with the towels at the shampoo bowl. A bright white one throws light straight up under the jaw. A softer shade doesn't.

There is one exception, and it matters. The color site Palette Hunt says "cool-undertoned skin (pink, rosy, blue-based) actually does better with pure white," because ivory's yellow base can leave a yellowish cast.

Either way, the outfit is easy: a pink blazer over a cream knit, or over a crisp white one if your skin is cool, so the pale shade sits right under your chin.

If black feels too severe on you, navy does nearly everything black does, with a gentler edge. Angie Cox, founder of the style site YouLookFab, puts it in four words: "Navy is softer than black." She says many of her clients have made navy "their black."

Chi Li agrees. She calls warm navy the perfect alternative to black, which "can sometimes feel too stark against mature skin."

Pink and navy also feels relaxed in a way pink and black doesn't, which makes it a natural casual pink Valentine's outfit. Try a pink sweater with navy trousers for brunch, a matinee or a long lunch with friends. Navy flats and a navy bag finish it, and the pink stays the only bright thing in the room.

Pick the hem first, then the boots. Wdrobe's rule is that "a midi skirt or dress that covers the boot top by several inches" is the most flattering choice. The one to avoid is a hem that stops right at the boot top. It lands "at the widest part of the calf and shortens the leg."

That gap is easy to miss while you're sitting on the edge of the bed tugging a zipper up. Check it standing, at a full-length mirror, in both pieces. If your sweater dress ends exactly where the boot does, change one of them: a longer dress, or ankle boots that let your tights run in one unbroken line.

A wrap dress ties exactly where you want your waist to be, which is a big part of why it has lasted since 1974.

That's the year Diane von Furstenberg made the first one, in stretchy silk jersey with a V-neck, a tie waist and a skirt just below the knee. It sold for $80. Within the first year she was making 25,000 dresses a week, and a million had sold by 1976. Her ad in Women's Wear Daily said simply, "Feel like a woman, wear a dress!"

If you owned one the first time around, you know how it moves. If you didn't, the tie lets you set the waist a little higher or lower to suit you, and the stretch means it follows you when you sit down.

For Valentine's, a midi pink dress in that shape works for dinner, a dance or a long lunch, with low heels or ankle boots. What can stop it is the crossover at the chest. In the fitting room, sit down and lean forward. If the front opens, try the next size or a different cut. No pin will fix a wrap that's wrong for your shape.

The boldest pink here comes with a famous name. In 1937, Elsa Schiaparelli launched a perfume called Shocking, in a bottle Leonor Fini designed as a dressmaker's mannequin based on Mae West's curves. Her reason for the name: "The name had to begin with S, as this was one of my superstitions."

In her memoirs she called the pink "a color of China and Peru, but not of the West. A shocking color, pure and undiluted." The recipe was magenta with a little white mixed in, and Balenciaga and Charles James took it up from the 1940s through the 1960s.

The color that makes it wearable today is burgundy. Grazia USA suggests burgundy trousers with soft pink cardigans and says the stronger pinks need dark burgundy to "ground their intensity." So the formula is a shocking-pink cardigan buttoned up as a top, deep burgundy trousers and burgundy shoes.

If your coloring has gone soft (more on that at #8), this much pink near your face can overpower you. Wear the cardigan open over a burgundy top so the pink sits farther from your face.

Dusty rose is the pink for anyone who finds bright pink loud. Chi Li says muted rose "adds a subtle, natural flush to the skin, mimicking the warmth of a healthy glow in the cheeks."

There's a catch if your hair is silver. Jovani's style blog warns that dusty pastels "carry gray in their own mix," so they blend into silver hair instead of framing it.

I see this all the time from behind the chair. Put a grayed mauve sweater next to beautiful silver hair and the two melt into one soft blur, and the face gets lost between them.

If your hair still has its color, dusty rose is a lovely, easy choice. If it's silver, look for a rose with no gray in it, a clear rose, and test it in the store by holding it up next to your hair, not against your arm.

Gray or silver hair is one of the best reasons to wear pink, as long as you choose the pink on purpose. Beth Djalali of Style at a Certain Age names hot pink among the colors that flatter silver and gray hair, and she explains why: "Color near your face is one of the most effective styling tools available to you... It makes you look alive."

Two ideas decide which pink is yours. Jovani's "clarity rule" says silver hair rewards clear, saturated color like fuchsia, while "dusty, grayed-down shades read as gray-on-gray." Stylist Maria Sadler, who has more than 20 years' experience, sorts women by contrast instead. Contrast means how different your hair, skin and eyes look from one another.

Fuchsia's name is a happy accident. French scientist Charles Plumier found the plant around 1696 and in 1703 named it for Leonhart Fuchs, a Bavarian doctor who died in 1566. The color is named for him as well, and he never saw a single fuchsia.

The black dress you already own is half a Valentine's outfit. The other half is pink, worn close to your face.

Maria Sadler is blunt about why: "Black drains most women over 50, creating shadows, emphasising tiredness." I'd soften that a little, because black looks wonderful on some faces. But I've watched it happen often enough that I'd never send you out in black without something near your face to lift it.

A pink pashmina or big scarf does the job. Imogen Lamport of Inside Out Style shows six ways to wear one over an evening dress. Three are especially good for date night:

• As a shrug, wrapped around both arms across the shoulders, so you get pink at the collarbone and warm arms.
• Pinned with a brooch at an angle across the front. Lamport's warning: don't pin it "too close to your neck."
• Wrapped diagonally, over one shoulder and under the other arm, for one sweep of color across the dress.

If you have a pink wrap in a drawer, you don't need to shop. If you don't, this is the one purchase I'd make, because it also works with the coat at #1.

Halters look romantic on the hanger. In my experience, the halter is the neckline women give up on halfway through dinner.

A V-neck, a cowl or a boat neck gives you the same pretty frame without the fuss, and each one tells you what necklace to wear. Alara Jewelry's neckline guide lays it out:

If a V is cut deeper than you like, a camisole in the same pink raises it without breaking the color.

Keep your lipstick, blush and eye color in the same family. That ties a pink outfit to your face, so the pink looks like it belongs to you instead of only to the dress.

Makeup artist Gabi Soares, who has done makeup on clients for 20 years, says it simply: "Staying with a cohesive color story across the lips, the cheeks, and the eyes is a very simple way to bring harmony and balance to any look." And then, more simply still: "Just match up those three colors somehow."

Jason Hoffman, VP of Artistry and Education at Amyris, the parent company of Rose Inc, makes the same point about blush and lipstick: "the trick is to go with the same undertone."

In practice, set your lipstick, blush and eye shadow on the bathroom counter by a window, next to the pink you're wearing. A rosy lip, a rosy cheek and a soft wash of rose on the lids belong together. Anything that looks orange or purple next to the others goes back in the drawer for another night.

If your lipstick creeps into the fine lines around your mouth by the time the main course arrives, a liner fixes it. Gabi Soares says lipstick bleeding and lip lines are "a source of a lot of self-consciousness amongst my mature clients." Her method:

1. Line with nude or soft pink. She calls these "just universally flattering," so a soft pink lip liner is the safe bet with any pink outfit.
2. Overdraw only in the middle. "Only overdraw your cupid's bow and the center of your bottom lip, meeting the natural lip line in the corners." Going outside the line all the way around looks too wide and can make your mouth seem to turn down.
3. Fill the whole lip with liner. When the lipstick wears off over dinner, you still have even color and no leftover outline.
4. Top it with creamy or satin lipstick, then add a dab of clear gloss in the center of your lips.

Skip matte. "Matte lipsticks, especially liquid lipsticks, can be drying and they tend to emphasize those fine lines around the lips," Soares says. Makeup artist Maria Jones, quoted by TODAY, agrees that comfort-satin or creamy finishes work beautifully on mature lips.

Take one gold piece and one silver piece to a window. Lay both against the bare skin of your wrist or neck in daylight, and pick whichever one makes your skin look brighter and more even. That's Palette Hunt's test, and the rule behind it is short: "Gold flatters warm undertones; silver flatters cool undertones."

Rose gold looks like the obvious match for pink, but Palette Hunt warns that on very cool skin it "can still read as warm." If silver won your window test, choose silver for the brooch on your pashmina and the pendant at your neckline, and leave the rose gold in its box.

Shoe color matters more than shoe style with pink. Here's the menu from Cristina Ehm of the shoe blog ShoeTease, from her guide to shoes with pink outfits:

• Nude, matched to your own skin tone, lengthens the leg. That means your skin, whatever shade it is, not whatever a store labels "nude."
• Black is "a lovely bold shoe option," and it carries pink and black all the way down.
• Wine suits lighter pinks, like blush or bubblegum pink. Burgundy doesn't give brighter pinks enough contrast, so save it for the lighter shades too.
• Gold, silver or rose gold all work for a dressier evening. Let #3 pick the metal.

Then choose shoes you can actually walk in. A Valentine's evening often includes a parking lot, a crosswalk and a stretch of icy sidewalk. For ice, MIT's safety office advises slip-resistant soles with wide, low heels, so a block heel or a pretty flat in the right color beats a stiletto you're wincing in.

Picture the restaurant door swinging open after dinner and the wind hitting your bare knees. Dress for the walk to the car, not only the table. The coat, and what's under it, decides how you'll remember the night.

Thirty degrees sounds manageable until the wind picks up. By the National Weather Service's wind-chill formula, 30°F with a 10 mph breeze works out to about 21°F, and with a 15 mph breeze, about 19°F.

The CDC's layering advice works for a dress as well as for snow shoveling. Put wool, silk or polypropylene against your skin, because those hold more body heat than cotton. A thin silk or wool slip under a pink dress counts. Add wool, down or fleece in the middle, then a tightly woven outer coat, ideally wind- and water-resistant. Add a hat, a scarf and mittens. Once you're inside, take layers off as soon as you're warm, and check the coat.

For the outer layer, camel is a friend of soft pinks. The blogger behind Poor Little It Girl lists soft pinks among the colors that "complement camel beautifully" and shows a camel coat over a pink silk maxi dress. Wrap your pink pashmina from #7 at the collar and the pink still shows with the coat buttoned.

The hat is where I can help most. Choose a soft knit beret that sits back on your head instead of a tight beanie pulled down to the brows. You can lift it off in the restaurant entry, run your fingers through the crown and walk in looking like you meant every inch of it.