I wrote the piece below in 2007 whilst living in Brussels and having the bright idea of setting up a website which looked for the best design for people getting older/old.

It was a good idea but, like many I have had, I didn’t follow it through – I’m not good at doing projects alone and though I contacted a then friend who ran a design company and he loved the idea, the ‘children’ who worked for him saw anyone over the age of 40 as at the very least, boring and designing stuff for ‘really’ old people as boring/appalling/unimaginable.

So, it never happened.

Now I am back more interested in these issues because they are nothing if not imminent/immediate.

Now, I am on the case again.

And on that, dear reader, there will be more to follow.

When the first baby boomers needed reading glasses there was a revolution – all of a sudden you could get smart, sassy glasses over the counter at reasonable prices.

But that, it seems is where design and ageing seems to have stopped – or at least not boomed as it were.

If you are of an age when you might consider buying one of those chairs that recline and push out a footrest, the designs available are just horrid – nasty, old-fashioned and yes, horrid.

There is nothing which is not either faux tapestry which looks as if it has been chosen not to show the dirt (or maybe leaking bodily fluids), or as in one US advert, blouson purple fake leather – give me a break.

When I need to sit down in a shower, I want an elegant well-designed seat which looks like part of a well-designed shower. I do not want the current option which is a plastic chair from B&Q or something which looks like it escaped from an old people’s home in the 70s.

The market is huge for good design for older people.

We are rapidly increasing in numbers, we have the money, we are demanding and style and consumer orientated, we could be a very good source of income for smart retailers and manufacturers.

And it is not just the house – but whilst still on that, IKEA could design a kitchen with the older person in mind: lots of drawers, good lighting, all sorts of ideas they probably already incorporate but just think if they advertised so that you knew at 60 when you invested in your new kitchen it would work when you were 75.

So, not just the house. Fashion. We are the generation who will shop in the same places as our daughters. But we also want stuff which is appropriate – not many of us, however well-preserved want our bellies showing.

We want to know that this store or online shop is great for seriously well-cut but smart trousers which hide a bulge or two. You may to pay a bit for them but you can team team then with these cardigans from Primark or Top Shop.

I have been doing some thinking about this and there is a lot of ground to be made up. Look at this site.

No one is going to convince me the women on the home page – a site which is apparently targeted at women over 50 – are anything over 35. Look at the lingerie section and…..well I rest my case.

And some of the shoes my granny would have baulked at.

The site is one of the best examples of knowing there is a market out there but not knowing how to cater for us.

(The site I found then no longer exists but just do a search for women’s clothes for the over 50s and you will see many an example, still, of what I saw then.)

There are an estimated 78 million people over the age of 50 around and they say that we will spend some 2 trillion dollars on consumer goods and services.

Well maybe, but I tell you I am not spending it on stuff which may be practical but ugly, functional and screams ‘old person’ at you. I do not want the grandkids walking into my house and thinking ‘old person’s house, yuk’ (or whatever the current parlance for yuk is.)

I want my house to be stylish, practical and contemporary – and designed around me getting older.

It is not impossible but at the moment the stereotypes are blinding the designers and retailers.

Old people – anyone over 50 – is either sprightly grey-haired and sun tanned walking in the sand dunes or toothless, infirm, frail and not caring what anything looks like.

(Why shouldn’t my (eventual) incontinence pads come in a Victoria’s Secrets wrapping or at least something nice?)

There is a lot of difference between being 50 and being 80 and the market needs to be looked at differently.

Well-designed things may be out there – and if anyone knows of anything I would love to know about it. In the meantime chair manufacturers, bathroom designers, lighting designers, fashion writers, magazine editors please take note: we want smart, sexy, stylish and very good quality – and for us, please.

As for marketeers and advertising agencies, it may be my prejudices but perhaps the fact they are staffed by hyper-cool boys may just be blinding them to the opportunities out there if only they would treat us right.