Wet Plate Wednesday: Am I too old to pull this off?

Many living historians talk about women dressing their age.  Others insist society pressured women to dress to the norm.  Others feel women purchased the fashions they could afford.  There were probably all three types of women just as there are today.  I do not find a lot of older women in outdated styles in photographic evidence.  This older lady definitely fell in the last category.  She is dressed to the nines including her bonnet.  This extremely fashionable style of bonnet peaked in the fashion plates in the first half of 1864.  Towering  above the forehead and narrow at the cheek, this particular high brim bonnet ushered in the end of the popular spoon shaped style.  By the second half of 1864 and the first half of 1865, the fashion plates began to show more conservative styles sitting closer to the head.