"Now we can add Slater’s memoir to our essential texts that rethink aging in an image-centric world."—BookPage, starred
“Slater’s genuine enthusiasm radiates throughout the text; her tales of resilience and about the evolution of her self-confidence suffuse each page, effectively challenging societal constructs about age. A charming, relatable tale about the power of reinvention."—Kirkus
One of Elle's Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2024.
A personal memoir in which Lyn Slater, known on Instagram as “Accidental Icon,”brings her characteristic style, optimism, forward-thinking, and rules-are-meant-to-be-broken attitude to the question of how to live boldly at any age.
When Lyn Slater started her fashion blog, Accidental Icon, at age sixty-one, she discovered that followers were flocking to her account for more than just her A-list style. As Lyn flaunted gray hair, wrinkles, and a megadose of self-acceptance, they found in her an alternative model of older life: someone who defied the stereotypes, refused to become invisible, and showed that all women have the opportunity to be relevant and take major risks at any stage of their life. Youth is not the only time we can be experimental.
How to Be Old tells the ten-year story of Lyn’s sixties, the sometimes-glamorous, sometimes-turbulent decade of Accidental Icon. This memoir is about the hopeful and future-oriented process of reinvention. It shows readers that while you can’t control everything, what you can control is the way you think about your age and the creative ways you respond to the changes in your mind and body as they happen. Rather than trying to meet standards of youth and beauty as a measure of successful aging, Lyn promotes a more inclusive and empowering standard to judge our older selves by.
In this paradigm-shifting memoir, Lyn exemplifies that even with its unique challenges, being old is just like any new beginning in your life and can be the best and most invigorating of all of life’s phases, full of rebellion and reinvention, connection and creativity.
This March, writer, cultural influencer, and former professor Lyn Slater—better known as her viral Instagram handle Accidental Icon—brings her characteristic optimism, forward thinking, impeccable fashion style, and “rules are meant to be broken” philosophy to the question of how to be old in a youth obsessed world, in her personal memoir, HOW TO BE OLD: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon (on-sale 3/12.)
Slater has been featured by the TODAY Show, Cosmopolitan, W Magazine, and The Cut, and her over 750 thousand followers found in her an alternative model of older life: someone who defied the stereotypes, refused to become invisible, and showed that anyone can take a major risk at any stage in their life. Slater is available for interview and can discuss:
- How to use reinvention as a bold strategy when one meets a challenge in life regardless of what stage of life you’re in or what that challenge might be
- The pivotal moments when she reinvented her own life: first deciding to enter the digital sphere at age sixty as the Accidental Icon, where she became an alternative model of someone who defied stereotypes and the expectations put on older women; her decision to walk away at the height of her career as a result of reckoning with influencer culture and consumerism to pursue a new life that’s more aligned with her own values as an author and cultural essayist.
- Why the standards of successful aging and self-worth should be focused on achieving our own personal goals and not trying to meet the standards of youth and beauty on a specified timeline.
- How reinvention exists not only within us as changing a mindset, but also how we can externally show our reinvention through choice and action—whether that is taking new classes to explore new ideas, creating something new out of an old wardrobe, or committing to what is important to your values and goals.
- Stories that show the highs and lows of a career spent in fashion and on social media, as a former influencer and model who attended international fashion weeks and created campaigns for Hermés, Dior, and more.
