Lessons in vitality

Tracy is probably the most honest fashionista that CFW has covered. Are you ready?

She’s 47, and makes no bones about it. She also has two fashion philosophies, and she makes no bones about them:

“Cover up flaws, and [have] one noticeable garment. Like earrings or your scarf. That way you can look at one thing and feel okay about your outfit even if the rest of it sucks. Or if you have one jacket you really like—just dress around it.”

She’s been spotted in lots of black. What gives?

“Black is very grounding to me, which probably you could analyze, or my shrink could analyze,” she laughs. “I really do have so much that goes with black. Every now and then I pull out a brown and I can’t even function. I have black on every day.”

Black also serves another function for Tracy:

“If you have a tendency to feel big…black makes you feel smaller.” But she’s not… big. “I know, but there’s always that feeling. I had twins in utero and I can’t get past that feeling. I gained 70 pounds, so there’s always that feeling.”

Even though she’s a mom, and that has affected how she looks, she refuses to give up on her appearance. 70 pounds gained and lost, children to raise, and nearing 50, she won’t let herself blend into the sweatshirt-slugging mom masses.

“A lot of people I know are like that… where my kids go to school there are these moms and they have kindergarteners, and they’re full on gray.” And she’s not talking about hair: “It’s like they are gray. They’re done. Where’s that coming from?”

It’s easy to see how Tracy would have a hard time understanding where they’re coming from. She’s continuing her education at Missouri’s Journalism School, even after an already-successful journalism career. Tracy is the kind of woman that will probably be learning Mandarin when she’s 75. She’s not the kind to burn out, or fade away. But she knows you have to work at keeping yourself going.

“It’s awkward to say my age, but in a way it’s not,” she says. “Because what are you going to do? When I’m 57 I’ll go, gol, 47 was really young!” she laughs. “And there are people who are 67 and doing really great things. Why not?”

There’s another reason, too. A more painful one. “Part of it is, my mom died just over 50. And she was in bed from the time she was 40. So… part of it is probably from that bad experience.”

She recalls a movie, Finding Forrester. “There’s a line where Sean Connery says, ‘Who knows why some people live and some people don’t.’ You can look at that on a superficial level, but in a broader sense I think he means why not just live, versus not live?”