Having Fun is The Key To Staying Young at Heart

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My good friend Debra has taught me a lot of life lessons in the year that I have known her. One of the most important ones is to always have fun and enjoy what you are doing at the moment. I met another women in her 90s who explained to me that although her body had aged, she felt like a child inside. This doesn’t mean that she hadn’t matured, but that she still had a young spirit and longed to play and have fun .One of the keys to remaining youthful is remembering to have fun, and dressing up is a great way to express this kindred spirit.

Yesterday I met Debra’s good friends Mary Winder Baker and Susan Wick. In the 1970s, they worked together as a performance group focusing on women’s issues, fashion, health and nutrition, and ideas of aesthetics. Here are some photos I came across from a performance they did in Berkely in 1975. These women have stayed young at heart because they continue to have fun and explore their creative spirits.

The Nature of Fashion

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Maryann,Debra, Lina and I had a wonderful outing to the Museum of The City New York the other day. We went to check out out the “Notorious and Notable: 20Th Century Women of Style” exhibit and decided to go for a nice Autumn walk in Central Park afterwards. We are all inspired by the colors that we see everyday in nature and Debra and Maryann happened to be dressed perfectly coordinated with the fall foliage. I wanted to show how nature can inspire fashion in terms of color choices, texture, and patterns. I have the learned from the ladies above Lina in her 20s and the gals in their 60s, that the key to being stylish is having confidence, opening your eyes to the world around you, and never stop having fun. Is your style inspired by the world around you?Iris Apfel’s contribution “Notorious and Notable: 20Th Century Women of Style“

The Development of Personal Style

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I was talking to a friend the other day about why I photograph and interview older people. We went over how I was very close to my grandmother and how I wanted to bring focus on the advanced style set and show that beauty, style, and creativity don’t disappear at a certain age.She had an interesting point. She feels that many of these people continue on from a peak moment in their lives. Their hairstyles, way of dress, and manner of decorum are carried over from a time when they first began to feel comfortable in their own skin and elements of this moment become frozen in time.This form of developed presentation is what I am capturing on Advanced Style. A majority of the ladies and gentleman I talk to tell me that although they have had interests in style throughout their lives, that it is in their later years that their personal style really developed as a result of years of experience.


I try and feature a range of styles in my photographs, but I am particularly interested in this idea of a “peak moment”,frozen in time, where street style portraits speak not only about fashion history but also personal development. I spent most of my youth watching black and white movies with my grandmother. Seeing an older woman walking down the street dressed in the same style that she has been wearing for 40 years brings me back to these beautiful and graceful images.That’s not to say that people don’t continue to “advance” their sense of style.This is what makes my subjects so interesting to me,the combined wisdom and experience of a lifetime of dressing along with a willingness to adapt new ideas and trends into one’s lifestyle.The woman below mixes old fashioned charm with contemporary chicness. Her orange suit, although classically cut is made of Neoprene. She is a wonderful example of how one becomes comfortable with certain things like her vintage gloves and classic tailoring, but the unexpected material of her suit exemplifies a willingness and desire to continue to learn, progress and advance.The key to looking stylish is confidence and older people have had time to develop not only a personal sense of style, but a comfort in who they are.

The Carter Burden Center for the Aging Annual Fashion Show

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I attended The Carter Burden Center for the Aging 9Th annual fashion show where stylish seniors strutted down the runaway in their most fashionable attire. It was great fun watching these vital ladies and gentleman dance their way down the red carpet strutting their stuff for other senior members and staff. The Carter Burden Center for the Aging is an incredible organization that seeks to change the face of aging. The center,” promotes the well-being of individuals 60 and older through a broad array of direct social services and volunteer programs oriented to individual, family and community needs” and they are “dedicated to supporting the efforts of older people to remain in their own homes living independently, safely and with dignity.” Check out their website for more information on the center on the programs they have to offer http://burdencenter.org/ .