FEATURE: GRAMPARENTS
Of course it has to do with someone’s personal interests, but one can roughly guess what will come up on their socials before they get to peek at them. As much as Instagram was meant to be a place to let the singularity of each of us run free, from it arose an accepted, calculated way to present things, even ourselves. Likes are partly responsible for sought-after sold-out sneaks, definitely responsible for that bloody avocado toast. And so in such a trend-saturated landscape, anything beyond what’s commonly shared stands out — that includes, yes, our elders.
This is sort of what Kyle Kivijärvi, the brain behind the more than 170K followers Instagram style blog Gramparents, realised when he started posting well-put-together, stylish older than the average New Yorkers on his own personal account. “I’d walk around the city and would see these seniors all dressed up for whatever they had to do, minding their business, drinking a cup of coffee, reading the newspapers etc. and, well, I began taking photos of them,” Kyle tells us over Zoom. “At first I’d stack the shots in a folder on my phone and share some of them on my Instagram, but as my feed’s aesthetic started leaning towards elderly fashion I thought of making a separate, dedicated page for it.”
Kyle started Gramparents around 2016 when he was working at clothing shop Gentry in Brooklyn, where he had to travel to Europe for buying trips. When this occurred he’d enjoy making new connections but would also make the most of his time abroad and document what the elderly of Paris, and elsewhere, were wearing. He’d do the same when he was at home and not working, often heading to Central Park where some grandpas would hit the pond with small rowing boats, some still somehow dressed up for these occasions. He’d also go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, or any museum, for that matter, where 70-ish Upper West Sidders would attend lectures in their best outfits.
“I like how elders tend to dress up in such a simple and low-key way. You’ll rarely if ever see them wear branded clothes,” Kyle says. Indeed, with a few exceptions — such as the cross-generational New Balance 990s or Birkenstock clogs, or any clothes printed with a pattern known by all, like Burberry’s check — scrolling down Gramparents’ feed reveals garments that stood the test of time: that’s Oxford shirts, that’s ribbed beanies, heavy canvas jackets and thick tweed suits, down coats, shells, a good pair of jeans, a sturdy sweatpants, and, of course, khakis. While these days some may dub such a style as normcore, Kyle argues it’s actually been around awhile. “It’s just well-made and neutral clothes that are suited for most social outings. I actually find myself wearing a similar style, besides perhaps putting on a pair of recently dropped sneakers,” Kyle says, while pointing out the L.L.Bean shirt bought from a vintage reseller he’s wearing.
“Elders lived things we haven’t like the Great Depression and two world wars and surely that played into how they see life, what they invest in and decide to buy and wear. In these times clothes had to last for years, not a few seasons. And I think that stuck with them,” Kyle says. “There’s a simplicity and reliability to the things they pick and choose to wear.” He goes on to say that if today’s youth dress up in front of a mirror, thoroughly calculating their outfit before posting it online or hitting the streets, he wonders if some of the gents he meets even take a look at themselves before heading out. “They know what they wear looks like. They’ve been wearing it for years already,” he says, jokingly admitting that once he could tell that the man he was talking with surely didn’t much glance at himself in the mirror, as he partly buttoned his shirt in the wrong holes.
Besides being a page dedicated to the elder generation and, indirectly, to classic design, Gramparents gives Kyle a context and an opportunity to share moments with those who get to be featured on it. Having worked in a retirement home before heading to NYC from the West Coast, this is something he was already doing prior to launch. “After high school I worked taking care of elders for some time and have always liked spending time with them,” Kyle shares.
“They know what they wear looks like. They’ve been wearing it for years already.”
And today, even though he moved back to the West Coast during lockdown, he keeps doing just that. “What really drew me to them is how down to earth they can be, how they go on with their day and genuinely seem to enjoy the small things in life, like going for a walk or sharing a conversation with a stranger,” Kyle says. He recalls how once in Seattle he sat next to a couple in their 70s on the bus, talking about nothing much for the entire ride, only to end up joining them to the cinema to watch the film they were about to see. “That was one of the coolest things I’ve done,” he says. “And the funny thing is, I went back to Seattle a few months ago and ran into that same couple, sitting on a dock staring up at the night sky’s stars. They remembered my name, and we caught up for a chat.”
While most elderly aren’t necessarily following Gramparents nor have much of a presence online, some who do have Instagram linked up with Kyle. “Some say they don’t always feel seen, that they’re happy someone noticed them,” he says. And for those who aren’t the social platform, Kyle has amassed quite a few emails from the people he got to photograph and catches up every now and then, finding out how things are going /
