Advanced Style or Gummers With Money

"This is who we should strive to be." from Chicago Tribune's Barbara Brotman

Few things escape my notice; that does not mean that I fully grasp their sense to some, nor their essential worth to me.

I dress reasonably well. Still the aging Joe College Look - Outlet Brooks Brothers or knock-offs. Subdued, yet grace-worthy, if I take the time to have daughters or companion to give me the once over.

This morning the Chicago Tribune's Barbara Brotman offered this New Export to the Midwest her daughter's gushing approval for a documentary on Stylish Women - photo above and the filial accolade. Here's more -

Admirers have been wearing down their exclamation point keys posting comments.

"I utterly adore these women ... they so ROCK!"

"OMG. They are so cool!!!"

"This looks GREAT! So excited to be an old lady!"

Among their fans is Tavi Gevinson, Chicago fashion blogger and editor-in-chief of the online magazine Rookie. A 15-year-old student at Oak Park and River Forest High School, she occupies the opposite end of the fashion age range, but has linked admiringly to the Advanced Style website. She joined Cohen in hosting a party for the Advanced Style women in New York during Fashion Week in September.

"I'm inspired by them, and I admire that Ari doesn't make them into a novelty, or talk about them like they're precious or cute," she said in an email. "Some of them have style you might call cute, but their ideas and personalities are so important when he writes about and photographs them, and they all seemed so present and lively at the party."

Cohen began the project when he moved to New York from the West Coast five years ago. "All around me were these incredible women who were so dressed up and, more important, were active — going to the opera, working, getting their groceries," he said.

Is it just me? I think all of these women have natural beauty and sport wonderful features. That said, I think their get-ups would sicken a billy goat raised on razor blades and broccoli.

Does age demand that one don glassesthat Harry Caray might deem garish, dye hair the color that Bozo thought extreme, and eschew the wooden, or peg-leg entirely, like the blue-hair second from right above? Is the sombrero a necessity for a night out with the grand kids at Billy Dec's, or Stations of the Cross?

Here is Nancy Kwan a contemporary of the ladies sporting the Dick Tracy look above:



Same age, wildly different approach to 'what works.' Though fourteen years my senior, I'd take a hard run at Nancy Kwan. Nothing is sexier than basic black and pearls.