FASHION Magazine
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Advanced Style hits the silver screen! Meet the ageless stars of this blog-turned-documentary
Photography by David Pike Meet the Advanced Style ladies »
Over the past few years, photographer Ari Seth Cohen has introduced us to the world’s finest dressers through his blog Advanced Style. The blog, focusing on stylish 50+ women, has become a treasure trove for those who think outside the box, breathing some much-needed fresh air into the often ageist fashion industry. It’s safe to say the blog’s been a hit, resulting in a hardcover, a colouring book, modeling campaigns for its subjects and now a full-length documentary. On Tuesday night, Advanced Style had its world premiere in Toronto as part of the Hoc Docs film festival and technical difficulties aside; it was a sight to behold. Following Cohen and his cohort of vibrant subjects, director Lina Plioplyte delves deep into the philosophy behind over-the-top dressing at any age.
A few hours before its debut, we sat down with four of the film’s fabulous subjects—Lynn Dell Cohen (a.k.a. “The Countess of Glamour”), Tziporah Salamon, Deborah Rappaport and Joyce Carpati—and learned a great deal about confidence, thrifting and talking over each other.
Photography by David Pike
Photography by David Pike
Photography by David Pike
Photography by David Pike
Photography by David Pike
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The five genius style lessons we learned from Ari Seth Cohen’s just-released Advanced Style book
Photography courtesy of Advanced Style by Ari Seth Cohen, published by powerHouse Books Read the Advanced Style tips! »
Through his blog, Advanced Style as well as our collaborations with him over the past year, Ari Seth Cohen lets us inside the shimmering worlds of some of the finest (and we mean in the fine wine sense) ladies of style. They’re aged 50 and over and rather than their style transcending their age, it’s defined by it. In fact, as many of Cohen’s subjects have attested to, their adventurous styles have not only matured throughout the years, but they are brightly characterized by the fact that they no longer dress for anyone but themselves. For anything but the joy of it.
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All the lovely ladies crowd into New York’s New Museum to toast the launch of Ari Seth Cohen’s Advanced Style coffee table book. View the pics!
Photography courtesy of Sara Ventura/NOWNESS.com Oldsters at the New Museum converged in technicolour flocks while young things, no longer bright by comparison, looked greenly on. For once on a champagne-soaked night in New York City, the “it” girls weren’t girls at all. They were women with lives as rich as their Chanel bags, faces to live up to their fascinators. They were maybe even, unironically, “ladies.”
It was the launch party for Ari Seth Cohen’s new coffee table book, Advanced Style, published by Powerhouse and based on the popular blog of the same name—and accompanied by a several-minute video that premiered on Nowness.com in March. Guests were happy to watch it again: with advice like “young women, you’re going to be an old woman someday, so don’t worry about it!” and “someone doesn’t like what I’m wearing? I don’t give a shit!” it’s probably the feel-best fashion film any of us has seen. Iris Apfel‘s in it, and so is Tavi, for whom rad granny style is a major inspiration.
“These women are some of my best friends,” said Cohen, who wore a Floridian pink suit he’d bought for $80 in Chinatown. “They’ve definitely influenced my own style—they’re so liberated!” Ilona Royce Smithkin, an ebullient half-pint of a woman with Tang-dyed hair and mink eyelashes to match, tugged impatiently on his sleeve. He had another book to sign. “We don’t have all night,” sighed an elegant woman in mounds of paste jewellery and piles of clashing silk. “We might not even have another five minutes!” replied her friend, and they cackled together. They did not seem to care when the party ended, so long as they were the stars of it.