How style and love look after age 60
Sometimes you feel like donning 1950s rockabilly wear, and other days you want to be a cowboy wizard.
True story when you talk to photographer and filmmaker Ari Seth Cohen, the mind behind the blog, the book and the film “Advanced Style” — media about the fashion-forwardness of the over-60 set in New York City and around the world. His recent work, “Advanced Love,” is a compilation of photos and profiles of couples from around the world, sharing their stories and lessons about relationships and falling in love.
Since Cohen started the blog in 2008, names, faces and their colorful wardrobes have reflected colorful personalities.
“All the women that I photograph tend to live artful lives. It’s really about their spirit, and the style is just a reflection of the energy, the curiosity and all these things that they put into their daily lives,” said Cohen, 38. “I made a film a few years back, and a lot of women in that film have become some of my best friends now. I’m inspired by the way that they live their lives.”
We sat down with Cohen to talk about his passion for all things vintage and not going quietly into that good night as one ages.
Q: How did this all begin for you?
A: I studied art history and always had an interest in style, spending so much time with my grandmother and her encouraging me to be creative when I grew up in Southern California. I spent a lot of time taking care of her after college. She encouraged me to move to New York, and when she passed, it just so happens that one day I borrowed my roommate’s camera and started to photograph people on the streets of New York who were over the age of 60 — really as a way for me to deal with the loss that I was experiencing.
And after a month or so, I realized the images that I was taking had the power to possibly change people’s ideas about getting older. I was seeing women in their 80s and 90s walking around the city looking wonderful and feeling great, and I wanted people to have an alternative perspective to beauty and also see that there’s a different side of aging that we don’t necessarily see.
Q: Do you find that these older fashionistas find fashion effortless?
A: I think that it’s different for everyone, but at a certain age, you might have a collection of treasures to pull from. It’s not that it takes effort — it’s that it’s something that the women enjoy every morning getting up and deciding, “Who do I want to be today, what do I want to express?” Looking at your mood for the day.
I think there’s a lot of fear of getting older, a lot of fear of creative expression. And if we look at ourselves and the people we were when we were younger and realize that it’s really about joy and expressing it without judgment, especially when you get older, that’s all what it’s really about.
Q: Does something like nature versus nurture apply in fashion?
A: I think it’s a little of both. If you talk to the women that I photograph, they were taking bows off presents and tying them in their hair, tying it around their waists. Some of them lived through the Depression, and they had to be creative with what they wore, but they all had an individual style. But that does change and develop as they get older. Sometimes it can be a refined eccentricity; it can be a refined elegance.
I think it’s about the comfort in knowing who you are, and that often happens as you get older. You know who you are and what you want to represent to the world. It kind of becomes amplified. Sometimes people no longer care what others think — they don’t have to please their partners or certain careers that might have restricted them from wearing
certain things.
Q: How has your life changed since you started this project?
A: I’ve made incredible friendships with people who have taught me incredible lessons. I think we all want to have things figured out at a certain point of our lives, and I think these women really teach you that that never happens. The thing that you learn is, you’ve got to always keep learning, growing and continuing the journey. The moment you think you have it figured out is the moment that you don’t have it figured out.
Each person has a different perspective and has lived a different life, and I’m kind of a sponge for all their information. I think older people should be our teachers and the ones we look toward, but in our society we’re kind of taught to treat them as invisible and really ignore them. But hopefully with the books and the film, that’s changing a bit, but we can do it in our daily lives as well.