I think you’re overintellectualizing this. My take - as a woman of the same age - is that the designer is ugly and wants other women to look ugly, too.
Actually, that’s a theory we developed after watching the second season of Project Runway, and it’s been pretty reliable way to guess who gets kicked off since then... If you (or anyone else) watches it, this most recent season Kenley was a prime example of what I’m talking about, and so was the guy who kept insisting he was ‘classy’ and yet made kinda slutty clothes.