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A unique style.

“I don’t think that an older woman can look younger. The moment she tries to downplay her age, she will look anything but younger”, or so Joyce Carpati explains while Ari Cohen takes her picture in her own apartment. “But she can look elegant! And I assure you – she will get noticed!”

Joyce still remembers the very first time she realised that others admired her style. Aged 17, she returned to New York from a stint in Italy with a tweed suit and suede oxford brogues. “Everyone was looking at me because no one else would wear such a thing”, she gushes. “It was sheer, understated elegance and felt simply wonderful!” Almost 60 yeas down the line it was this particular elegance Ari noticed about his model muse. 

“I spotted Joyce because she has a unique and characteristic style of her own. At the time, she was wearing a trench coat, her pearls and her signature braids.” Ever since this first encounter, the two have become firm friends and Joyce has become a popular and recurring fixture on Ari’s Advanced Style blog.

Bold and eccentric characters.

The photographer’s protagonists invariably exude a sense of elegance, yet also use their exterior as a means of creative expression. Besides Joyce “the embodiment of beauty and grace”, according to Ari, Advanced Style also features plenty of bold, eccentric characters – from 90-year-old artist Ilona Royce Smithkin with her long, orange lashes to the 71-year-old Beatrix Ost who is not averse to matching a turban to her hair colour (or even the other way around?).

Joyce adores Advanced Style and appreciates the blogosphere’s democratic approach. She loves the way it brings attention to a generation often ignored by mainstream magazines.

“Ari has done a great deal for us and compiled a wonderful book. Many will wish that they had come up with the idea instead.”