Ask An Influencer: The Accidental Icon

Last time, we talked to a celebrity vet with a thriving dog Instagram. Now we're chatting with The Accidental Icon, 66-year-old professor turned fashion blogger Lyn Slater, about how she transitioned from a 20-year career in academia to running a fashion Instagram with nearly 700,000 followers.

Lyn Slater: Well, I'm the kind of person who, every five years or so, gets very bored. And so I embark on this kind of creative exploration. Five years ago, I was very bored with academia, which is what I was doing full-time. And I decided to take some classes in fashion school. I took very random courses — like how to open your own vintage store and jewelry fabrication. In doing all of that, a lot of people kept telling me, "You should start a blog, you have a great style." After a while, I realized that to be really good at jewelry fabrication or things like it, you have to practice and do it a long time, and I said to myself: Well, what can you already do? You have good style, and you know how to write — you're a professor. So I decided to start a fashion blog, and I started my Instagram at the same time. 

I just retired this last spring semester after teaching for 20 years — I taught social work, and a good part of my teaching was also in law school. And in fashion, I did not know one person or have one contact. Completely blind. 

I taught at Fordham Lincoln Center, which is where Fashion Week used to be, and I was waiting for a friend for lunch, wearing a Yohji Yamamoto suit. People must have thought I was somebody in fashion, and they started taking my photo and coming up and talking to me. When my friend came, she saw and said, "You're an accidental icon." So that was really the genesis of how I got my name. It was really kind of an accident actually, given that I was a social worker. 

When I first started out, because I didn't know anyone in fashion, I wasn't invited to Fashion Week. But what I could do is go to the market shows as press. And in that process, I met a lot of young designers just starting out. They had no money for PR and they put every dime into making their clothes, so I basically said: "Let me wear your clothes, and I'll do an Instagram of you or write a blog post about you." Because of that, I was able to stay current, so I still have a very great commitment to fashion-design students and new designers starting out. I try to support them however I can.

In terms of working with brands, it has really accelerated over the last two and a half years. I have a bottom-line ethical approach to it, which is if I would not wear the garment or use the product in my own life, I will not promote it. And I think that's been a really good policy. The other policy — and I've probably lost huge amounts of money because of this — is that I do not accept jobs that are targeted for age-specific markets. I get many inquiries for things meant for women over 50 or 60, and I have made a choice not to participate in segregated markets, because my belief about inclusion is that all women should be at the table regardless of positionality. It doesn't help the cause of anyone to split off that way. So that's been very helpful to me, too, because when I first started out, everyone asked who my target market was. And I said anyone who loves to use fashion to express their identity and themselves and likes to talk about it that way. That doesn't have an age or demographic.

And I'm so happy I did that, because on my Instagram, the bulk of my followers are 18 to 35. And I love young people. I've been a professor for 20 years, and when I was a social worker I worked with teens and young women, so being around them helps me to stay modern and relevant and pushes me. I also now have an agent who handles all of the negotiations, which is a really good thing because I was really clueless about that aspect of it all. But my agents are very good, because they know my bottom line and what I will or will not do.

I think an "influencer" is a good thing, but I think what gets conflated in our space is whether you're influencing someone only for the purpose of buying, or you're influencing them to think about their life differently, to be themselves, to be comfortable. For me, I call myself a cultural influencer because the one thing that's happened for me, which I didn't really intend for but I'm very happy about, is that I have been able to change the feelings of many women to stop being afraid to get older. They write to me or leave comments about it. That's been an unintentional consequence, but a good one.

I consider myself really blessed to have overwhelmingly positive comments and feedback. I think where the ageism has come in is more from people my own age, who are gatekeepers in the world of fashion. Sometimes the press, usually older people, presents me in some articles in this niche just with other gray-haired people. But there have been some articles that I totally love, where they put me in comparison with influencers of all ages who are doing well at this. Because it's a lot of work putting out content and engaging and being able to have a following, which I have done completely organically. And I want, in some ways, for that to be acknowledged. I think that's a real empowerment issue. I think young people are more open to deconstructing categories of positionality, and they know things are very fluid.