Martha Stewart Responds to Critics Who Say She Should Dress Her Age: “I Don’t Think About Age”

Martha Stewart at an event — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Martha Stewart is 82, but in the grand scheme of who she is in totality, that’s just a minute detail, really. Especially when it comes to how she dresses: while attending the Fashion Group International Night of Stars gala in New York City, she was asked about “dressing for one’s age”—to which she responded, with a laugh, “Dressing for whose age?”

“I’ve dressed the same since I was 17,” Stewart said. “If you look at my pictures on my Instagram, I look pretty much the same. I don’t think about age. I think people are more and more and more [fabulous] than they’ve ever been in their senior years, and I applaud every one of them.”

Further proving that age really is just a number, Stewart walked the talk earlier this year when she graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue alongside Megan Fox, Kim Petras, and Brooks Nader. Stewart called the opportunity “once in a lifetime,” People said.

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“It was not a goal I set for myself, but once asked, I thought to myself, ‘Let’s do it!’” she said.

She added covering the swimsuit issue in her eighties was not just meaningful to her, but that she hoped it was meaningful for any woman: “It’s important to stand up to challenges, whether they’re beauty challenges or intellectual challenges, even philanthropic challenges,” Stewart said. “To be able to stand up and do it, to me, is so fun. And this is accomplishing something that not everybody would accomplish.”

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.