Rising Stars: Meet Jen Siddle

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jen Siddle.

Hi Jen, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My path hasn’t exactly been a straight line, but I think that’s probably true for most of us.
I left university after just one year. I wasn’t entirely sure where my career would take me, but I knew I wanted to be out in the world working rather than continuing to study. I was drawn to PR and marketing, so I worked full-time in a bar to pay the bills while going to evening classes at my local college to gain a marketing qualification. It paid off, and I eventually landed my first job in London.
Life then moved into a very different chapter. My now-husband and I bought our first home, got married and started thinking about a family. Our first child was born in 2007, and I absolutely loved becoming a mum. Then, in 2008, we welcomed twins! Suddenly we had three very young children and life was a whirlwind. It was exhausting, chaotic and hard work, but also completely fabulous. Being able to stay at home and raise my children was genuinely one of the greatest privileges and happiest chapters of my life.
Fast-forward to 2024 and things were beginning to change again. My children were becoming adults and naturally needed me less, and I found myself asking a question I think so many women reach at this stage of life: Where do I fit into the world now?
I started an online positive-slogan clothing business, which is still thriving today, but along the way I realised my real passion was becoming something much bigger: building a community of like-minded women navigating this stage of life together.
Perimenopause, children leaving home, changing bodies, changing relationships and that strange feeling of losing the identity you’ve carried for so many years can really knock your confidence. I wanted to help change the rhetoric around women getting older.
At 50 and beyond, we shouldn’t become invisible. We have lived, loved, laughed, cried, learned and survived for 50-plus years. We have stories worth telling and experience worth celebrating. We shouldn’t be made to feel smaller, less relevant or simply “old” because we’ve reached a certain age.
Today, I create content around pro-age beauty, health, wellness and fashion, but at the heart of everything I do is that community and the message that this chapter of our lives can be exciting, liberating and incredibly powerful.
My tagline sums it up perfectly: Refuse to Fade.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Definitely not – but I’m not sure anyone’s road through life is completely smooth!
For me, one of the biggest struggles has been navigating the different versions of myself. I went from being a young woman building a career to becoming a mum of three very young children, and motherhood became such a huge part of my identity. I absolutely loved those years, but when your children start growing up and needing you less, it can leave you wondering, Who am I now?
That coincided with perimenopause, which brought its own challenges. Your body is changing, your confidence can take a knock and suddenly you can feel as though society sees you differently too. There is this strange narrative around women reaching 50 that somehow we should start retreating into the background, dressing a certain way or accepting that our best years are behind us. I really struggled with that idea.
Starting again professionally after so many years focusing on raising my family was daunting too. Social media and running an online business were completely new worlds to me, and there have definitely been moments of self-doubt and wondering whether I was too old to be doing it. But I think those struggles have actually become my motivation.
I realised I wasn’t the only woman feeling this way. So many of us reach this stage and find ourselves questioning our identity, our confidence and what comes next.
I’ve learnt that you don’t have to have everything figured out. You can reinvent yourself at 50, try something new, get things wrong, learn as you go and take up space while you’re doing it. I’m probably more comfortable with who I am now than I’ve ever been.
That’s really where Refuse to Fade comes from. Getting older isn’t something I want to fight or apologise for – I just refuse to become invisible because of it.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work is really centred around one message: Refuse to Fade.
I create content for women in midlife and beyond, with a focus on pro-age beauty, fashion, health and wellness. I share everything from skincare and make-up to what I’m wearing, how I’m looking after myself and the realities of navigating life at this age. But underneath all of that, my real passion is confidence and community.
I want women to see someone their own age showing up, trying new things, wearing what makes her feel good and being visible without pretending to be 25. I’m not interested in “anti-ageing” or telling women they need to fix themselves. Ageing is a privilege. I want us to look and feel our best while embracing the women we’ve become.
I think what sets me apart is that I came to this later in life. I didn’t spend my twenties or thirties building a personal brand or growing up on social media. I spent those years raising my family. At 50, I found myself having to rediscover who I was outside of being Mum, while navigating perimenopause and all the physical and emotional changes that come with this stage of life. I’m figuring some of it out alongside the women who follow me, and I’m very open about that.
I’m not trying to present a perfect life. There are wrinkles, wobbles, insecurities and days when confidence disappears completely! But there is also so much joy, freedom, humour and possibility in getting older, and I think we need to see much more of that.
What I’m most proud of is the community that’s growing around this message. When another woman tells me I’ve encouraged her to wear something she’d thought she was “too old” for, try something new, feel good about herself again or simply feel less alone, that means far more to me than numbers on a screen.
Ultimately, I want Refuse to Fade to be more than a tagline. It’s a mindset. We don’t become less interesting, less beautiful, less ambitious or less relevant as we age. We’ve earned our place, and we shouldn’t be afraid to take up space in it.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
This might surprise people who know me for beauty, fashion and wellness, but I used to work as a bouncer/security in a nightclub! I’m not sure anyone looking at my Instagram today would necessarily guess that one.
I also have a bit of an adventurous and determined streak. In the same year, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and ran the London Marathon, both for charity. Looking back, I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to take on both in one year, but I’m incredibly proud that I did!
I’m also a qualified yoga instructor, which probably fits my current world slightly more than the nightclub security does!
I suppose the common thread is that I’ve always liked challenging myself and proving to myself that I can do things that might initially feel a little outside my comfort zone. That’s something I’m carrying into this chapter of my life too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theashmolegroup.co.uk
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenlovesandlife
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/19QjuJ6Hms/?mibextid=wwXIfr