Lyn Slater (aka Accidental Icon) on writing a new narrative for ageing

My guest today is a woman who knows all about reinvention. For 45 years, Lyn Slater was a professor of social work with a side-passion for fashion. Feeling burnt out, she started a blog aimed at women like her who wanted to talk about clothes and the way they shape our identity. 

And, just like that, the phenomenon that was Accidental Icon was born.

Suddenly, the professor found herself an “influencer”. And For the best part of her 60s, Accidental Icon’s million Instagram followers and countless brand campaigns took over her life. Until she reached a point where she began to wonder precisely where LYN had gone.

Now, in How To Be Old - a story of ageing, identity and what it means to be comfortable in your own skin - she has done it again. At 70, she’s a debut writer. Something she has dreamt of from the age of seven.

Lyn joined me from her home on the Hudson to talk about why we need a new narrative for ageing, intergenerational belligerence, her rebel grandmother and the unlikely feminism of nuns.

We also discussed how she lost herself to life online, how accidental icon gave her body image issues, deciding to swap fashion for family and why she’s finally realised she doesn’t have to be the good-bad girl any more. 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Lyn's book, How To Be Old and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

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