The first time Lyn Slater felt control over her body was at the age of 40, when she got her first tattoo. Twenty-three years later and she’s never felt better. The oldest of six siblings, Lyn has spent her entire life surrounded by young people. Working as a professor at Fordham University, she became frustrated with the split between her academic life and her creative sensibilities.

 

Taking the decision to actively challenge the ageing process she started to experiment with fashion as a means of self-expression — taking sartorial risks as a reminder that she was still very much alive and present.

i-d Vice mag

Saturn in Capricorn is going to turbo-charge the trend of anti-ageism in fashion/culture. Of course there are already front runners like Maye Musk but anticipate more.

Lyn Slater is a professor who created the Accidental Icon blog after she was mistaken for a fashion industry maven at a cafe near New York Fashion Week. Swarmed by paparazzi, this Gemini just past her 2nd Saturn Return (aka in her chronological sixties) decided to reinvent.

Of course, being Gemini and thus calculating (this is a compliment), she could well have schemed the whole thing. But whatever, her voice is fresh. She is decidedly against dictates for women (most of the time that cringe inducing crap is directed at females) to ‘dress their age’ and sees it as a control mechanism.

From W Magazine:

Currently, Slater divides her time between teaching at Fordham University and posting on her fashion blog, but she sees everything that she does as connected. “Trauma is very much held in women’s bodies,” she said. “And because of that, I always understood the importance of clothing, even to women who society thinks don’t care about clothes.” For example, she’ll advise women on dressing for court appearances beyond the simple suit that their lawyers ask them to put on.

 

It was a dissatisfaction with academia, though, as well as mainstream magazines and “middle America” fashion websites targeting women her age, that lead Slater to start a blog of her own. A researcher by trade, she surveyed what was out there, and decided she could succeed by doing the opposite. Within six months, she had a cover and editorial in Grey magazine.

How do i know she is a Gemini? I don’t. But it appears as a hashtag on her Instagram @iconaccidental and she has a classic mercurial flair with words, knowledge and – yes – clothes. But i contacted her. I want to know all her chart. And i want to know what transit was going down when she decided to revamp and make a cultural moment out of it.

Thoughts?