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The Takeway: Older Women Promote "Aging Stylishly" on Fashion Blogs
By Elizabeth Nolan Brown, May 2, 2012 08:08 AM
Fashion may be fleeting, but style isn't-as a new crop of digitally and sartorially savvy older women have been proving. Whether starting their own personal style blogs or appearing on blogs curated (and usually featuring) those decades younger, these women aim to show that aging doesn't have to mean muumuus and orthopedic shoes.
Take Tziporah Salamon, a 62-year-old Manhattanite who favors vintage hats and red lipstick and keeps a scrapbook of all the times she's appeared in New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham's "On the Street" column. "Women at a certain age become invisible and by dressing this way I'm not invisible," said Salamon.
If anything, my style just got more pronounced as I grew to know myself better and better. I make fewer mistakes now that I am at this age and know what looks good on me and what I like."
Advanced Style, a street style blog focused exclusively on people over 50 (started by 30-year-old photojournalist Ari Seth Cohen), has become so popular since its launch in 2008 that it has led to a book, to be released May 22, and a documentary film about "aging stylishly"-along with modeling gigs for some of the older women it has featured.
A lot of women are scared of aging so I wanted to present images of women who feel better as they age," Cohen said. "It starts with style, but once you start thinking about style, the discussion turns to lifestyle and how to live life to the fullest."
Inspired by Advanced Style, 69-year-old Judith Boyd launched the blog Style Crone in 2010, in part to deal with her late husband's illness and death.
Want more? Check out " Forever on the Catwalk of Life," " Idiosyncratic Fashionistas," 40plusstyle.com and (for male and female style) " That's Not My Age."
Wednesday Quick Hits:
- Teen heartthrob Bobby Vee, 69, said he has Alzheimer's disease.
- A pair of 94- and 92-year-old sisters fended off a would-be carjacker outside a CVS drugstore in Hamilton, N.J.
- Computer services giant IBM is offering incentives to senior staff member to take early retirement.
- And are boomers sacrificing retirement security for the sake of their families? The latest research from Ameriprise Financial found that only about a quarter of boomers are saving for their own retirement, while more than half (58 percent) are assisting aging parents financially and many are also helping adult children with tuition or bills.
Photo: Purestock/Superstock/Corbis