Old School Style

I promised a post about why I consider elderly ladies to be style icons, and what it is that I find interesting about the way that they dress. I love vintage clothes for one thing, as I’ve said before, and I like the way that older women mix the vintage pieces they held onto from their youth with newer things. I remember seeing ladies in NYC who had lovely coats they had obviously been wearing since the 1950’s and ‘60’s. One woman I saw on Staten Island walking in my neighborhood near the ferry to Manhattan had on a pretty black wool coat with three-quarter length sleeves that I especially liked and she had paired it with an equally retro black shift dress and contemporary gold sandals. It looked fantastic on her. Another lady I saw on the ferry one day had a perfect solid black ensemble complete with a huge patent leather handbag, a black raincoat, low-heeled black pumps and her hair tied back with a black and white print scarf. She was also hauling a black metal wheelie cart, the kind you use for groceries or laundry – she had dressed up that much just to run errands, which I thought was really cool. A friendly lady in my old neighborhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn stopped me on the street one day, saying “Forty dollars!” and hoisting two plastic bags of groceries. I said, “I beg your pardon?” She replied, “Forty dollars for these! Everything is so expensive around here now.” This was right as Williamsburg was gentrifying into hipster-land from its original incarnation as an old Polish/Jewish neighborhood. We got into a conversation about how much the area had changed, and she told me that the great-looking Jackie O glasses she had on had cost her $300 for the frames alone at an optical shop on Bedford Avenue. She also looked amazing – in addition to the glasses, she wore her hair in a Jackie bouffant and had on an olive green ‘60’s swing coat. I like nice things, but I am naturally thrifty (that’s a survival skill for a writer, and it’s part of why I like vintage) and I value my older clothes. I really loved the fact that these ladies had bought well-made coats forty years ago and took good care of them so they would last. I consider that admirable. They are practical and once they got something good they held onto it, and used their energy and money for better things than shopping frivolously (something I’ve certainly been guilty of). The final style example I will give is a lady I saw walking with her husband in my neighborhood here in Los Angeles a couple of months ago. They were both Indian and about seventy-five years old, and she had on a sari with sandals and an old cardigan sweater, and wore her long silver hair in a single plait down her back. He had on little old man slacks and a plaid shirt, and they looked awesome together, like anyone’s cute grandparents, except for the exotic touch of the pretty sari. I think the fundamental reason I really notice these ladies is that they are old enough to be past dressing to please anyone but themselves. The outfits they were wearing weren’t anyone’s idea of current fashion – they were all dressed simply and in well-preserved but dated pieces, but every one of them looked elegant and comfortable, and their retro things looked perfect on them. They weren’t going for a conscious “look,” they were wearing what was natural to them. That’s what I liked the most about it – their clothes just made them look very true to themselves. That’s what I strive for. If it takes a lifetime to fully achieve it, that’s fine. I've got clothes from the '80's I'll probably be wearing for forty more years, so I've got a start on it already.