Silver Sunday: Why the Lack of a ‘Sunday Best’ Is Keeping Our Grandparents Isolated

When we talk about loneliness in later life, we often focus on whether someone has people around them. We rarely ask what might prevent them from joining others in the first place. For some older adults, the barrier may be transport, mobility, health or finances. For others, it may be having nothing they feel comfortable, confident or dignified enough to wear.

This Silver Sunday, let us reflect on not only whether our grandparents are lonely, but what might be stopping them from socialising.

When clothing is a barrier to socialising 

Single pensioners face particularly high levels of poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that around 1.9 million pensioners in the UK are living in poverty, with pensioner poverty affecting around one in six older people¹.

For people already managing limited incomes, essential costs such as food, heating and housing take priority. Independent Age has documented how financial pressures can also lead older people to withdraw from social activities and reduce contact with friends and family².

If someone does not have clothes they feel comfortable wearing outside, leaving the house not only becomes another expense, but another source of embarrassment or another practical difficulty. Research and reporting on clothing poverty has highlighted this connection between inadequate clothing, social withdrawal and mental wellbeing³.

This does not mean that clothing causes loneliness; it can be one more barrier between someone and their social world.

Respect, dignity and the Sunday best 

Across different communities and faith traditions, dressing well for worship has historically represented respect. There was once a strong cultural expectation around having a ‘Sunday best’: carefully chosen clothes worn for church, family visits and community occasions. Dressing well could represent pride, respect, faith and belonging.

For older people experiencing poverty, that ritual can be increasingly difficult to maintain.

In Black communities in particular, ‘Sunday best’ has also carried meanings of pride, fellowship, identity and resilience⁴. Dressing well is therefore an act of participation. There is a significant difference between choosing not to dress up and not having anything you feel able to wear. One is a preference whilst the other is a form of exclusion. A church service, community lunch, family gathering or trip into town can suddenly feel like something they are not properly equipped for.

Clothing, therefore, becomes connected to dignity because people need to feel presentable on their own terms. Clothing poverty can affect how people feel about themselves, and whether they feel able to participate in social life.

Clothing that carries a life 

Unlike the rapid turnover encouraged by contemporary fashion, clothing accumulated over a lifetime can become closely connected to memory, routine and personal identity. Garments are worn, repaired, adapted and worn again.

A favourite cardigan is therefore not simply a cardigan. It may be associated with a particular period of life, a loved one, a profession, a place or a memory. Clothing can carry biography⁵.

Personal style does not necessarily disappear with age; instead, clothing becomes one of the ways people maintain a sense of continuity with who they have always been. A Medium article reflection on older people's personal style describes this as an “unintentional” form of style: clothing shaped less by trends than by comfort, usefulness, habit and personal meaning⁶. Mobility can be more difficult. Hands may be less dexterous. Certain fabrics may become uncomfortable.

This is important because it challenges the assumption that older people need to be made fashionable by today’s standards - when in fact, what one needs most is clothing that feels like them. The garment may carry memories, routines and a sense of continuity that carries more impact that one would initially assume.

Ageing changes the body but it should not erase identity 

Comfort is not simply physical. A garment can be physically comfortable but aesthetically alienating. Good clothing should therefore accommodate the body without making the person disappear inside it.

For people living with dementia, the process of dressing can be more complicated as sequencing, fastenings and recognition become difficult. This is where adaptive clothing is important.

Research and work by organisations supporting older people and carers highlight the value of garments designed around real bodies and real care needs: easier fastenings, adaptable openings, discreet solutions for medical equipment and fabrics that prioritise comfort without abandoning personal style⁷.

Research into dress and dementia also suggests that clothing can become part of the relationship between older people and those who care for them. Care-workers described dressing as an opportunity for conversation and one-to-one interaction, while compliments about appearance could visibly lift residents' mood. Familiar fabrics and textures could also provide sensory ways of connecting with people living with more advanced dementia, demonstrating that clothing can create opportunities to relate to someone as a person rather than simply as a body receiving care⁸.

This is significant because dressing is something that can be something done with them. The same research also highlights how easily personal identity can be overlooked within care environments. What one generation considers appropriate or presentable may not reflect the tastes of another. A resident's clothing can therefore become an expression of whether their individuality is being recognised or simply managed.

What should we give older people? 

Clothing donations are an important part of tackling clothing poverty, but older people should not simply receive whatever unwanted clothes happen to be available.

Most importantly, older people should not be treated as passive recipients of whatever others decide they need. Choice and dignity matter.

A useful point of reflection is:

Would I give this to someone I love? Would this item make them feel like themselves?

Organisations working with older people and carers have increasingly highlighted the importance of clothing that combines practicality with identity. Research cited by Carents suggests carers have reported that suitable, stylish, adaptive clothing could make a meaningful difference to older people's lives⁹.

The solution to clothing poverty is better access to clothing that allows people to remain comfortable, independent and recognisably themselves.

What we can do this Silver Sunday 

Silver Sunday asks us to think about connection; however, connection requires more than inviting someone somewhere. People need to feel able to go. They need warmth, transport, appropriate support, and places that accommodate changing bodies and health needs.

Why not gift an older person in your life something that reflects who they are and what they actually need?

Clothing will not solve loneliness on its own, but we should not underestimate what happens when someone no longer feels equipped to participate in the world around them.

This Silver Sunday, perhaps we ask a slightly different question.

Not simply:

“Are our grandparents lonely?”

But:

“What is stopping them from joining us?”

People need to feel ready to be seen, ready to participate and worthy of being there. Dignity can begin with something as ordinary as having something decent to wear - because having somewhere to go is only part of belonging.

References:

1. University of Kent (2013). Dress, Dementia and Embodiment of Identity. Examines how clothing continues to communicate identity and presentability in dementia, including the significance of familiar garments and personal appearance even as cognitive abilities change.

2. Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2026). UK Poverty Statistics: Overall Poverty Rates for Children, Working-Age Adults and Pensioners. Reports that around 1.9 million pensioners in the UK are living in poverty, with pensioner poverty affecting approximately one in six older people.

3. Independent Age (2022). Poverty in Later Life. Reports that older people who experience poverty are significantly more likely to experience reduced social contact with friends and family.

4. BBC News (2025). Clothing Poverty and the Impact on Older People. Examines how inadequate access to suitable clothing can contribute to social withdrawal, affect mental health and reduce people's ability to participate in everyday life and get outdoors.

5. Service95 (2024). The History and Meaning of Sunday Best. Explores the cultural and religious significance of dressing formally for worship, including the importance of Sunday best within Black communities as an expression of faith, pride, fellowship and identity.

6. Awad, Y.F. (2025). Why Do Old People Have Such Good Style? Medium. Discusses older people's personal style as something shaped by clothing accumulated, repaired and re-worn over time, with comfort, usefulness, habit and personal meaning taking precedence over trends.

7. Buse, C. and Twigg, J. (2018). 'Dressing disrupted: negotiating care through the materiality of dress in the context of dementia.' Sociology of Health & Illness, 40(2), pp.340–352. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.12575. Examines how clothing mediates care, identity and social interaction in the context of dementia.

8. University of Kent (2017). Maintaining the Self through Dress. Research examining dress, ageing and dementia, including the importance of familiar clothing, personal identity, comfort, autonomy and the tensions between care and individual choice.

9. Gray, J. / Carents (2024). Adaptive Clothing and the Importance of Dress in Later Life. Big Issue. Discusses the relationship between clothing, identity, autonomy, confidence and quality of life for older people and carers, including the potential of adaptive clothing to support independence and participation.

Cover photo by Artem Labunsky on Unsplash