About Gail McCauley

Gail McCauley has over 40 years of experience in the fashion industry. At the age of 16, she joined the ‘B’Altman & Co. Junior Fashion Board’ created for teens interested in careers in the fashion industry. Since then, she has been a retail management intern at Bloomingdales and a manager at Bergdorf Goodman. Gail also has experience teaching fashion at a community college and freelance writing in the home decor and color niche. Eventually, she launched her own licensed model and talent agency. 

Today, she is a fashion blogger and content creator, making fashion content for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and her website. Her content features beauty, fashion, and style tips, including fashion reviews, advice on thriving after 50, and great savings that she negotiates for her followers – a group of ‘ageless’ women. 

The Start of LifeBeginsAfter50

During her time as a modeling agency owner, Gail was bothered that models who weren’t in their teens or twenties were frequently passed over for jobs. 

She shares, “Women who were curvy and shapely or shorter. In other words, they weren’t a size 0… that really led me to want to create content for women of all ages, shapes, and sizes, of the women who are out in the world really.”

Gail McCauley and her husband have both been entrepreneurs, which gave her experience working for herself. Combined with her extensive experience in the fashion industry, Gail McCauley decided to launch her social media accounts, focusing on promoting fashion for all women. 

Over the years, her focus has shifted from blogging to Pinterest to Facebook to, more recently, video content on her YouTube channel and TikTok. 

Her most popular content on YouTube focuses on ageless fashion. For example, her top-viewed video currently is on ‘Fabulous Fitting Tights!!!’ She also has a successful YouTube series on going grey.

Gail McCauley explains, “I really like to give valuable information to my followers, and that includes negotiated discounts. I try really hard to work with my brands because the economy is what it is with inflation and people having to work so hard. Every penny that they spend on fashion and style counts. I try to get the best-negotiated discounts that I can, and I try to work with affordable brands.”

She also works with small businesses as much as possible.  

Providing Value Online

In addition to negotiating discounts for her viewers, Gail imparts as much information and value as possible with each piece of content she creates. 

Gail McCauley explains, “What I’m trying to do is really take the time to, you’ll see more and more of for the followers on my YouTube channel, where I’m not only reviewing a brand as many YouTubers do, but I like to really go into the details of the products and what makes each style special.”

For example, Gail discusses how the clothing lies on the body, how they wash, the fabrics and patterns, and how to style the piece with other things in your closet. Video content allows her to show the material up close so that viewers can see the piece’s quality for themselves. 

Brand Collaborations

Gail McCauley has worked with many brands over the years. Some of the biggest brands she has worked with include Chicos, Clarks, and Dr. Scholl’s. 

She shares, “I try to keep to quality brands. They don’t have to be big, huge national brands, but the quality is really, really important to me.”

Brand collaborations are one way that Gail McCauley monetizes her content, which has become a full-time career for her. Many companies regularly solicit her for collaborations. However, Gail is selective about who she works with. She also primarily works on a per-collaboration basis with brands rather than as an affiliate. 

“I don’t just do fashion. You’ll see other things on my page. I like to refer to myself as an ageless fashion and style blogger because I named my blog LifeBeginsAfter50. Even though fashion is my emphasis, I like to share anything that’s useful and important to folks, really women over 50.”

Other niches regularly featured on her social media and blog include home decor, beauty, and skincare. 

The Future is Video

Gail believes that the future of the creator economy is video, which is just one reason why she is heavily focusing on growing her YouTube channel. 

“I think we’re going to continue to keep going towards video, which is why I’m making it my emphasis this year. I never claimed to be a social media techie at all, but having had a few small businesses of my own and not having the money to go out and pay for social media specialists, I’ve really had to pull up my bootstraps and learn how to do things on my own. Sometimes, it takes me two and three times the amount of time to figure something out.”

Gail doesn’t consider herself a ‘techie,’ so she’s glad that trends force her to adapt and learn new things that she wouldn’t otherwise go out and learn. 

When Gail is asked by other creators starting out for advice, she always tells them there is no magic trick. It’s all hard work. 

She explains, “Consistency is key and, to me, it’s not about the number of times you post per week, but that you’re putting out quality content all the time for your followers, who are very personal to me, and some of them have been following me for a few years, I want to make it interesting. I want to make it beneficial.”

It’s also essential to Gail that she helps her followers save money and choose quality products. She never shares products just to share them. 

Gail says, “I don’t ever just throw things out there, and I pick up a few new kinds of products along the way. I make sure that it’s something valuable to my followers and me. I really don’t have any plans to change course from what I’m doing now, only to make it better.”

Going forward, Gail plans on continuing to focus on her YouTube channel and video content, with the same emphasis on ageless style and thriving over the age of 50.