Ruth Kobin is 100. She stretches every morning, does Pilates once a week, and wouldn't dream of leaving her New York apartment without having applied her lipstick. She wears chunky gold chain necklaces without looking remotely trashy, and holidays in Bermuda with her boyfriend. Her motto in life is "to celebrate every day and not look at the calendar".
Ruth is one of "Ari's girls", so named because she is regularly photographed by 30-year-old New Yorker Ari Seth Cohen for his influential blog, Advanced Style. Cohen's mission: to offer proof that personal style advances with age. "I've always had a connection with people who are older than me," he explains. "When I left college I looked for jobs at old people's homes; my dream job would be an event manager for a care home."
Left to right: 100-year-old Ruth Kobin and one of 'Ari's girls' in leopard print.
Cohen began his blog in 2008, inspired by his stylish brace of grandmothers, Bluma (an intellectual ex-librarian who introduced her grandson to screen sirens like Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn) and Helen (a glamorous blonde who tottered around in Escada suits and was frequently mistaken for a film star). After moving to New York at Bluma's behest (he grew up in San Diego and studied art history in Seattle), he bashfully approached an immaculately dressed, elderly resident and asked if he could take her picture. How did she react? "She was very touched. I've found that younger girls really want their picture taken but poutily pretend that they don't. The older ladies, however, are really grateful to be noticed. They tell me that over the age of 40, they feel invisible."
Ari Seth Cohen: the man who blogs about the silver stylistas
Invisible? A flick through Cohen's new book, featuring the harem of glamorous geriatrics who appear on his blog, provides antonymic evidence. Mary, 71, has a collection of eyewear to rival Kanye West. Sunglasses, she proclaims, "are better than a facelift. They hide the ravages of time, and let you spy on people." Rose, another centenarian, patrols Madison Avenue wearing hardwear-heavy Hermès belts and bulbous beads. Ilona Smithkin converts locks of her flaming red hair into false eyelashes for her cabaret act. She is 92.
Cohen basks among ageing beauties like a modern-day Hugh Hefner, with grannies substituted for bunnies. These ladies are his friends; he speaks to 50 of them on a weekly basis, visiting their computer-less homes to show them their pictures online. Do they have the same insecurities as younger generations? "Some of the ladies worry about getting older, but most of them don't really care. Older people possess a freedom because they don't have to dress to please anyone. They've spent a lifetime editing their style based on their jobs or their marriages, but now they can dress to make themselves happy."
Left to right: Author Alice Carey and the cover of Ari Seth Cohen's new book 'Advanced Style'
Freedom is key. All of the 200 women Cohen has photographed - from the pile-it-on, why-the-hell-not eccentrics to their classically dressed counterparts - put their energies into dressing for themselves. In a glorious antidote to today's considered insouciance (the "I just threw this on" look) their sartorial statements are very much 'put together'. "They take care when dressing," Cohen muses, "but they're much less self-conscious. The hipsters who throw it all together - that's a studied pose, [whereas] these ladies are experts, they're not even thinking about it."
The result is a swan song. Gitte Lee, wife of the most famous cinematic incarnation of Count Dracula, fronted a Céline campaign and was shot by Tim Walker for Italian Vogue in 2010. She appears on the cover of Cohen's new book, resplendent in a wide-brimmed black straw hat and bright red lips. Iris Apfel, another of Ari's girls, is the current poster girl for wacky nonagenarians, collaborating with MAC on a cosmetics line and with Yoox on a jewellery collection.
Celebrating the silver-haired set has also consoled a younger demographic. "I get emails all the time from 30-year-old women freaking out over their first grey hair, but they look at the website and feel better about ageing."
Ari will be signing copies of Advanced Style tomorrow at 5pm in Mary's Shop at House of Fraser, 318 Oxford Street, London, and on Saturday at 2pm in Mary's Shop, House of Fraser, Westfield, London. www.houseoffraser.co.uk
All pictures are from 'Advanced Style' by Ari Seth Cohen, powerHouse Books, www.advancedstyle.blogspot.com
Via: Proving that your fashion sense gets better with age
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