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Becoming a Work of Art


Advanced Style:  Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!


For many people of all ages that includes playing with one's presentation to the world, to friends, and to oneself.  Yet in our culture, women who are beyond their reproductive years are shamed into invisibility, retreating into clothes they were taught were more suitable for older women.  But not everyone succumbs to the idea that due to being older they should just shuffle off the stage of life, retreating to the comfort of sensible shoes, a cup of tea and the couch.  The photos on this page are from Advanced Style, the work of Ari Seth Cohen.To celebrate the sense of style of some stylish over-age-60 women he'd seen on the streets of NYC, Cohen used his photography to focus on them and got to know many through interviews and repeated photo sessions.  He eventually published a book as well as a documentary about women who don't give up the self-expression they've enjoyed all their lives just because they are "getting old".  The 'about' information on his blog explains that Cohen has created an "ode to the confidence, beauty, and fashion that can only be achieved through the experience of a life lived glamorously. It is a collection of street fashion unlike any seen before—focused on the over-60 set in the world's most stylish locales."  http://www.advanced.style

In reviewing the documentary, Helen Walmsley-Johnson at the Guardian commented:  "What each of these women has in common is that they insist that style has nothing to do with money – "fashion says 'me too', style says 'only me'" says Dell – this is about creativity and looking good to feel good. As Iris Apfel says, "everything I've got two of, one hurts". We all need something to soothe the frazzled spirit. Jacquie "Tajah" Murdock (82), elegant in powder-blue vintage Courrèges, is almost blind with glaucoma but didn't let it to stop her being photographed for Lanvin and nor will it stop her dancing at a charity benefit later this week in New York. I think we can all take a lesson from that. Go and see the film and be educated."  https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2014/may/07/advanced-style-ageing-women-ari-cohen Walmsley-Johnson herself wrote (2014...) as "the Invisible Woman" for the Guardian.  Her column was described as: " writing under the name Invisible Woman, may have many years behind her, but she isn't ready to hang up her love of style just yet. She writes about fashion for older women."  https://www.theguardian.com/profile/invisible-woman

If the reason a woman decides to relax into casual, conventional clothing and styles is not as a form of retreat but as a way of expressing herself honestly and comfortably to the world, more power to her.  There is nothing wrong with muted colors and styles that blend in smoothly, and if that's the style one has chosen for her life, I honor her choice.  In fact, I am myself one more prone to wear grey and black and comfortable shoes.  "Dressing up" is fun now and then, but I am not one to make my everyday life a palette of personal expression such as the women featured in Cohen's work.

However, I love to see my friends who embrace their artistic side through their sense of style!  And I am heartened by Cohen's work which goes deep and personal (watch the documentary; you will be entertained and enlightened by these women and their stories).

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature; beautiful old people are works of art."
 -quote source unknown





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