4848 marieclaire.com.au“Ageing has
become a
never-ending
adventure”❤ Clockwise from above:
major brands have
latched onto fashion
icons “of a certain
age”, with Sarah Jane
Adams walking for
David Jones this year;
Helen “Baddie” Van
Winkle modelling for
Missguided; and Iris
Apfel collaborating
with M.A.C.
insists. “With [Instagram] I’m being
fulfilled creatively and as long as I
remain authentic to who I am, that’s
all that really matters.”
A ballsy, likeable jeweller with a crisp English
accent and 26-year-old twins, Adams isn’t just a
style icon with long white hair piled high and a
penchant for punk rock clothing. She uses her
platform – something that, traditionally, women
have rarely found beyond a certain age – to dis-
cuss everything from ageism to menopause. It’s
changed her life, she says. “I’m actually very low
profile and I still think of myself as invisible –
even when I’m dressed up like a peacock,” she ad-
mits, adding that her husband takes most of her
photos. “But I know that people don’t really see
me, they see the clothes and that’s what I want –
the way I dress is my armour.”
Over in Denver, Colorado, 74-year-old Judith
Boyd, aka @Stylecrone, treats her 30,000-plus
followers to an endless parade of colourful head-
wear – an accessory she swears is essential for
every wardrobe. (“Choosing my outfits – which
always included a hat – has long been a way for
me to express myself creatively, but it’s also a form
of meditation as I approach the day,” she says.)
Boyd, a former psychiatric nurse, first began
making a name for herself with her Style Crone
blog, which she started in 2010 as a way for her
and her now late husband Nelson to deal with his
cancer treatment. “We found a way to connect
through the lens and even discovered levity by
featuring an ongoing series titled, ‘What to wear
to chemo?’” she says. Blogging throughout the last
nine months of Nelson’s life, his death and her
own grief helped her cope, she says.
Her online popularity is yet to translate intoa decent pension buffer, but Boyd says what mat-
ters is doing her bit in the fight against ageism. “In
a youth-oriented society, the act of visibility is
liberating and has contributed to changing the
perception of older people in our culture,” she
says. One day, she hopes, the skin of an 80-year-
old woman will be seen as just as beautiful as that
of a 20-year-old. “That’s when I’ll know the world
has changed.” In the meantime, she’s having fun.
“Because of Instagram, I feel more self-confident
and more comfortable taking risks,” she says. “I
had a wonderful life pre-Instagram, but my
journey today is providing new expe-
riences that I had never imagined at
the age of 74. I feel an exhilarating
engagement with life and new
growth; ageing has become a never-
ending adventure.”
Better than growing old with
just a cat for company, right? For a generation at
the greatest risk of isolation, Instagram could be
a surprising source of community and connec-
tion. On a sunny autumn afternoon, Tutti Ben-
nett is holding court in her local cafe, resplendent
in her headwear, oversized earrings, Dame Edna
glasses and ruby red lips. “You look amazing!”
passers-by tell her as she attempts to drink her
coffee. “Where did you get that scarf?” The com-
pliments are endless and Bennett doesn’t stop
smiling. “Oh, this is nothing,” she says laughing.
“You should have seen it the other night when I
went nightclubbing – everywhere I turned, there
were people coming up to say that they followed
me on Insta and could they buy me a drink!”
For as long as she can remember, Bennett’s
outfits have been conversation starters – a fact
she says she feeds off as both a “people person”
and a “talker”. “There are days when it looks like a
rainbow has thrown up on me, but whenever I
pass the ‘mature ladies’ section of a department
store, my soul dies,” she explains, adding that it
was her two daughters who insisted she take her
look, and longing for connection, to a bigger
stage. “They showed me how to work [Insta-
gram], taught me a few terms and here I am.”
For the queen of the Instagrans, Baddie
Winkle, mortality is the ultimate motivator.
When asked what advice she’d give to others her
age, she replied: “I would say, ‘Get off your butt
and get busy doing the things you wanted to do all
your life but never did. Do it before it’s too late.
Get out and do your thing.’”REAL PEOPLE