How I became an accidental fashion icon at 64 | Lyn Slater | TEDxMidAtlantic

It's not often a grandmother and university professor becomes an icon of style with a growing online Instagram and blog following of all ages. But that's exactly what Lyn Slater did, because she was, "having trouble finding a fashion blog or magazine that offered an urban, modern, intellectual aesthetic but also spoke to women who live what I call 'interesting but ordinary lives' in cities." And Lyn has a message to everyone who thinks they want fame and to be special: the real secret is to just be okay being you.

Lyn Slater is a professor of social work, a cultural influencer, a model, a writer, partner, mother and grandmother. She started her blog, Accidental Icon, in September 2014 because she could not find a fashion blog or magazine that offered an urban, modern, intellectual aesthetic and also spoke to people who live “interesting but ordinary lives” in cities.

People (like Lyn) who are not famous or celebrities but are smart, creative, thoughtful, engaged, socially responsible and most importantly clear and comfortable with who they are and reflect this in how they dress are who this talk is about. At the age when many people retire, Lyn Slater has reinvented herself as an influencer of popular culture, fashion model, and global icon. Lyn’s rejection of age as a variable to be considered in how one dresses has resonated and her blog has fans from around the world. Her Instagram has over 250,000 followers, most of whom are young.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Hello!

So, most people think my sunglasses
are a fashion statement,

but I have to tell you,
I wear them because I'm a little bit shy.

So I'm going to take a big risk ...

(Cheers)

(Applause)

and give it to you.

All right, so I'm really excited
to talk to you tonight

about this extraordinary journey
that I have been on the last three years,

since I've started writing
my blog "Accidental Icon."

So I wrote this blog
because I was feeling very stifled

in the way that I could write about things
that I really cared about in academia.

And so I decided that I wanted
to write more creatively.

I wanted to do some visual storytelling,

and I wanted to use something
that could engage a lot more people

into conversations about important things.

And so I actually chose fashion

as the lens through which
I was going to do it.

And I have to say, if anyone had told me -

because it really was a passion project,

I had no endgame, no outcomes in mind -

that what has happened to me
would happen to me,

I would have said
that they were stark raving crazy.

And so what has happened to me is -

you can see on the slide -

I got to walk the runway
at New York Fashion Week,

my image is on a bus in London,

and I'm in Shanghai, China,

telling people how you can start thinking
about developing personal style.

So the interesting thing about my story

is that I'm not the one
who's been telling it.

And so that's really
what my talk is going to be about;

the difference between
how the press has decided to tell my story

and what the real story is.

So this is a post that went up
five months ago,

and it went absolutely viral.

Within 24 hours,
I had 100,000 new followers.

And in social media, you know,
my first response was,

"Hey, let me unpack this,"

because getting that many followers
in 24 hours is amazing,

and it took me three years of very hard
work to get that amount of followers

by doing a lot of engaging
and thinking about the kinds of content.

So as I started to look at this,
I realized they're telling a fairy tale.

And so how many of you -

I'm probably dating myself here,

which is fine because
that's what I embrace -

heard of the cartoons, or remember it,
"Rocky and Bullwinkle?"

Okay.

They had this segment
called "Fractured Fairy Tales."

And as a kid, I used to think
this was absolutely hysterical.

And basically, quickly,
the Fractured Fairy Tale is, you know,

you take a classic tale,

you add modern characters,
you add modern elements

and you make us a moral

that's much more relevant
and engageable for today.

And so I realized
this is a Fractured Fairy Tale.

And as I started to read on,

I start getting a little bit annoyed
about how they're characterizing me

as an "ordinary" professor.

(Laughter)

So the Cinderella story, after I dug in,
it's a Cinderella fairy tale,

and in this case,
Cinderella is 63 years old,

she has grey hair, she has wrinkles.

She's a social work professor,

which in the mind of the public

is probably the most antithetical thing
to a fashion icon you could ever think.

And through some random event
at New York Fashion Week three years ago,

she becomes famous, she becomes known.

She upends all these traditional ways
we think about beauty

and who's allowed to come to the big ball

or, in my case, into the fashion industry.

And so I think what's interesting for me

is that it's actually
the ordinary parts of me

that I have embraced

which have caused me, I believe,

to enjoy the level of success

that I had been able
to have in this venue.

And so those two things are,

I have embraced the process of aging.

The other thing is,

I have really embraced
trying to be a good teacher,

and I have learned so much
from my students and in class.

So I'm rewriting this
Fractured Fairy Tale a little bit,

and I'm going to flesh out
Cinderella's character,

and just quickly tell you
a few key, ordinary things

that I learned from being
an ordinary professor

that has actually made me
very successful, I think, in this world.

So the first is being process-driven.

Because I really didn't know
the fashion industry,

I was pretty clueless.

So I really didn't have
outcomes or endgames

because I didn't know what I would find.

And I learned this in a classroom.

Because I would have
these wonderful lesson plans

and academic outcomes
that I wanted to see,

and of course a student's going to come in
and ask a question or tell a story

that is going to completely derail
your well-planned lesson.

But you stop a moment and you say,

"I'm going to go with this
because I think it could be interesting."

And inevitably, at the end
of a class like that,

you and the students
are leaving and you're saying,

"That was the best class we ever had."

And so that's the approach
I've taken towards this project.

The second thing is to be inclusive.

And as a professor, I can't speak
to one person in a classroom.

I have to speak to students
who might have a disability.

I have to speak to people
who are coming back to school

after a career in doing something else

or haven't been to college in a long time.

So I've had to challenge myself
to think about ways

that can include and engage

and speak to a huge, wide audience.

And when I thought Accidental
could start becoming something,

all of these folks said to me,

"Oh, well, now you have
to have a target market.

Who are you talking to?

You have to segment.
You have to identify."

And I really resisted that

because I wanted to just talk to people
who wanted to talk about fashion

and who thought maybe we could use it

to make some interesting
change in the world.

And so I have followers -
my youngest is 13, my oldest is 90.

They're from almost every country
in the world, every possible culture.

And I think that
was a very helpful thing to do.

I think another thing
that was really important

is to experiment

and to make the most out of mistakes
and happy accidents.

And I often tell my students,

"You know what? The best learning
is going to come from messing up."

And they don't believe it

because they see me
as a successful professional.

But here's a little story
from Accidental Icon.

I had been asked -

how many people have heard of Refinery29?

Okay.

It's a pretty big millennial web platform.

And they asked me to come in.

They wanted to do a photoshoot

and have me be part
of their holiday calendar.

And so I get there,

and there's this kind
of short, young-looking woman,

and she's bopping around.

She's giving people water.

She's coming to me and saying,

"What kind of music would you like
when you have your photoshoot?"

And then she came up to me and said,
"Can I take a photo for your Instagram?"

So she took a photo of me.

I thought it was a really good photo,

and I thought she was an intern.

And so I said, "Do you have a card?"

You know, I thought she was starting out.

And I said, "Sometimes
I could use another photographer,

so it would be great, you know,
if I had your card."

So I go home and, bad professor,

I did not do my research
before I went to the job.

I did it after.

And come to find out

this little woman is one of the founders
and creative directors of Refinery29.

(Laughter)

So after I was able to overcome my horror

and my dismay and my embarrassment,

I decided to write a blog post
about it poking fun at myself.

And I ended it by saying,

"Wow, I hope maybe
she'll let me be her intern."

And she actually read it,
and she thought it was hysterical.

And I've had many lovely projects
with Refinery29 after that.

And what's interesting is,

I tell people in the fashion business

about this terrible mistake I made.

And they're horrified,

like you could never recover
from something like that.

So this sort of just-me-being-me
kind of approach

has really been able to take me very far.

And so I think the message that,
you know, the fairy tale says,

"Oh, everybody wants fame,
and everybody wants to be very special."

But the real secret
to my becoming known has been

that I just really am okay with being me.

(Cheers)

(Applause)

And so that is really the message

that I hope to leave all of you with.

And finally, have fun.

I am having a blast.

I am going everywhere.

I'm doing things
I never would have dreamed

could happen to me.

And I really think if I had
a business plan or an endgame

or I was really outcome-focused,

I would miss all of these
wonderful and lovely opportunities

that have been coming my way.

So my superpower is ...
just be your old, ordinary self.

Thank you so much.

(Applause)