Jagger's brash style keeps the Stone rolling

Don Brash (left) and Mick Jagger

When the Rolling Stones bound on stage tonight at Western Springs, the adoring fans will probably forgive them anything - except not looking cool. Bad boy Sir Mick especially.

At 62, Jagger is still strutting his stuff, with his well-preserved butt squeezed into skinny leathers - all shaggy hair, suggestive movements and sweat. He's got attitude - and heaps of it.

It's that attitude, experts say, that keeps him ageless, keeps punters paying up to $350 a ticket to see a man who by all accounts should be at home with his feet up, living off royalties.

It's that attitude that sets him apart from peers in his own age group - like Opposition Leader Don Brash, three years older than Jagger and a classic example of a man quite firmly and happily stuck in a time warp.

Just as Jagger wouldn't be seen dead in a boring suit and predictable tie, Brash wouldn't be seen otherwise.

For weekend wear, Brash is likely to choose an unremarkable open-necked shirt featuring those buttons that can be replaced from a hotel sewing kit, and high-waisted roomy, front-pleated slacks. A pair of uncool spectacles and shaggy eyebrows top off the outfit. Guaranteed to blend with a crowd in a library, and a definite no-no with the attitude police.

Personal stylist Ingrid Vink calls the Brash look a "uniform" that men his age tend to wear. "They all dress the same and they don't know they are looking dated," she says.

By comparison, the Stones boys - whose youngest member Ronnie Wood is a mere 58 - make attitude and image an art form.

So what's the secret? Being aware of trends in general. Keeping an eye on what the younger generation are doing and wearing. And being prepared to give it a go. If you're a beginner, Vink says, take tiny baby steps. Even updating your shoes can take years off. And keep your weight down. Jowls and paunches are definitely ageing.

Letting go of those front-pleated trousers and replacing them with a more slimming flat-fronted trouser can be "hugely scary" (take note, Don). They're comfortable but they're dating, warns Vink, who gave advice on the Ten Years Younger television series.

Updating your image regularly stops the time-warp trap, she says. Joan Collins and Bridget Bardot have stuck with the same image for years and it ages them. David Bowie and Madonna, on the other hand, work hard to change their look every few years and, in doing so, beat the age clock.

The Stones are living proof that working hard at your image makes you difficult to carbon date. Keith Richards' skin might be transplant material and Mick Jagger's wrinkles might be deeper than his voice, but none of it matters. They are way cool, helped by a small army of stylists, hairdressers, wardrobe assistants and, usually hip hangers-on whose job it is to skilfully squeeze that ever-increasing generation gap.

Jagger is an extreme example of a generation borrowing from the one before, and the one before that. New York magazine has even named them: Grups (or Grupsters) a term filched from a Star Trek episode about a planet run by children who call grown-ups "grups".

These adults who refuse to grow old - yupsters (yuppie plus hipster) - lope around town and to work, wearing the same brand sneakers, jeans and T-shirts as their grown-up kids. They tint their hair, get facials, read the latest magazines, listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Savage Garden and Maroon 5, and go to the Big Day Out.

Their kids in turn are rifling through their collections of Cat Stevens, the Who, Led Zeppelin and the Stones.

As the boomers merge with Generation X, shops like WORLDman, Paris Texas, Workshop in Auckland's Vulcan Lane and the High St precinct see fathers and sons heading for the same gear.