Dress my age? No thanks: Meet the ‘granfluencers’ redefining style on social media

SINGAPORE – Fashion has long been obsessed with youth, but increasingly, some of the most inspiring dressers are older Singaporeans.

The Devil Wears Prada 2, the sequel to cult fashion film The Devil Wears Prada (2006), reignited fascination with its sharply dressed leads – now older, but still carrying the same sense of sartorial confidence that made them memorable in the first place.

Beyond cinema, silver-streaked Singaporeans styled with “confidence, humour, attitude and presence” have begun gaining traction on social media, notes local fashion content creator Kristian Lenardt.

His TikTok videos under the handle @kristianlenardt, featuring himself styling seniors – whom he defines as aged 60 and up – since 2024 have collectively amassed nearly 300,000 views.

“People are becoming more open to seeing seniors as expressive, stylish and culturally relevant,” the 25-year-old says.

Seniors, he adds, are usually seen as “grandparents, retirees or caregivers” – which is why seeing older people dressed in “that much intention interrupts that image for a moment”.

Within the local fashion scene, the grey revolution has also been on the rise. Modelling agencies, such as Platinum Angels Management (PAM), founded in 2022, are casting talents over the age of 50; while Singaporean personalities Ong Bee Yan, 70, and Gym Tan, 65, have become familiar faces in the industry.

The Straits Times speaks to three budding “granfluencers”, whose styles have become extensions of their personalities.

When Susie Low walks into the children’s wards at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) dressed as Wonder Woman, Spider-Gwen or Ariel from The Little Mermaid, many parents assume she has been hired by the hospital.

“No,” the 59-year-old says with a laugh. “We are volunteer cosplay aunties.”

The volunteer with local cosplay charity group Pause For A Cause, freelance silver model, actress and content creator spends part of her weekends visiting young patients in costume – entertaining them while supporting fund-raising drives and awareness campaigns.

Pause For A Cause collaborates with organisations including KKH and The Salvation Army, and participates in fund-raising roadshows.

Low, who is signed to PAM, is also a social media personality with 22,000 followers across Instagram (@suzyfromsingapore) and TikTok (@suzyfromsingapore67).

What began as playful TikTok transition videos during the Covid-19 years unexpectedly snowballed into something much larger.

In 2020, while working part-time as a VIP tour guide at Universal Studios Singapore, she re-downloaded TikTok out of boredom – and soon found herself immersed in an online community of mothers making cosplay transformation videos from home.

She gave it a shot and her cosplay transitions, fashion videos and candid personality began attracting followers.

Some clips drew backlash from users mocking her for cosplaying or dressing “too young” for her age – criticism she brushes off pragmatically.

“In one video, people were shaming me,” she says. “But I always look at the silver lining: They helped me grow my page.”

A friend suggested she channel the hobby into charity work through Pause For A Cause, which she joined in 2024.

Her costumes – which include metallic gold armour inspired by 2020 superhero movie Wonder Woman 1984, Spider-Gwen suits (an alternate-universe version of Gwen Stacy) and blonde wigs repurposed from Captain America cosplay – are all self-funded.

“We are there to cheer the kids up,” she says.

She believes seniors today are far more open to dressing up than previous generations, partly because of social media – where users are exposed to a wider breadth of styles, trends and representations of ageing that simply did not exist during her mother’s time.

“Back then, there was no internet,” she says. “Now, seniors see other seniors dressing well online and they think, ‘Why not me?’”

At the 2024 Yellow Ribbon Run, she completed a 5km race in her Wonder Woman outfit simply because she likes challenges and wanted to prove she could do it.

“People kept stopping me for photos,” she says. “They were shouting, ‘Wah, auntie, you so gold.’”

Some now recognise her as “the Wonder Woman of Singapore” – a nickname she laughs off, but seems amused by.

Off-duty, her wardrobe looks far less superhero-coded, though no less expressive.

The former Cathay Pacific cabin crew member, who spent 18 years with the airline, describes her day-to-day style as “fun and comfortable”, built largely around solid colours and “mix-and-match” pieces she can easily transform throughout the day.

A daytime lunch outfit, for instance, might simply involve sneakers, pants and a baseball cap.

By evening, she swops the cap for a beret or pageboy hat, throws on a jacket and, suddenly, “it looks totally different now”.

“I don’t follow trends,” says Low, who grew up flipping through Her World and Female magazines. “Trends come and go, but your style has to represent you.”

Prints, meanwhile, are acceptable only under very specific conditions. “If I wear prints, they must be loud,” she says with a laugh.

Her time as a flight attendant deepened her interest in experimenting with style. But during her 30s and early 40s, dressing up took a back seat to health issues.

After undergoing surgery to remove a throat tumour in 2018, and a near-fatal asthma attack in 2022, Low says the physical toll slowly eroded both her confidence and interest in fashion.

“I became very weak,” she recalls. “I didn’t even want to dress up any more.”

Exercise eventually became the turning point. What began as an effort to rebuild her strength and fitness gradually pulled her into sportswear, dressing up and feeling comfortable in her body again.

Shopping remains one of her favourite hobbies. Low prefers physical stores because she enjoys trying things on, comparing colours and fabrics in the mirror, and what she calls “the fun of retail therapy”.

Brands Zara, Mango and Love, Bonito are regular haunts, alongside thrift stores around Somerset and in heartland malls where she hunts for unusual jackets, pants and shoes that she can easily weave into multiple outfits.

A recent favourite purchase is a heavily discounted pair of Italian-made shoes she bought for $22 after deciding it was cheaper than repairing an older pair.

The mother of one likes strong silhouettes inspired by Hollywood actresses like Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep, while her 30-year-old daughter prefers feminine dresses and soft “Italian summer vibe” outfits.

“Fashion has no age limit,” Low says firmly. “You should not stop dressing the way you like just because people think you are too old.”

Interior designer Roger Tan dresses almost entirely in black, but nothing about the 65-year-old feels particularly minimal.

Long draped layers, heavy silver jewellery, elongated silhouettes and sharply structured outerwear have become part of his daily wardrobe over the years – though he seems faintly resistant to categorising the look as “streetwear”.

“I wouldn’t call it streetwear,” he says, gently correcting the label often attached to him online.

The father of an adult son is behind Instagram account @chromedaddytan.

The page, started in July 2025 after his daughter-in-law casually suggested documenting his outfits online, slowly gained traction among younger users fascinated by a senior dressed in Rick Owens.

Most of the videos are simple fit checks filmed at home or in lifts, with Mr Tan walking viewers through what he is wearing that day, or recent designer purchases – content that has grown his Instagram following to more than 2,000.

“I’m not chasing numbers,” he says. “I’m just sharing something I already enjoy doing.”

The response online has been enthusiastic. Younger users regularly leave comments, while strangers occasionally recognise him in public.

His style leans towards avant-garde design and military-inspired silhouettes. He fixates less on logos and trends, preferring to focus on proportion, layering and texture – ideas gleaned from his more than three decades of experience running interior design firm Image Creative Design.

“There wasn’t a specific point where I decided, ‘this is my style now’,” says Mr Tan, describing his wardrobe as something refined over decades through experimentation, bad purchases, changing tastes and gradually understanding what felt natural to him.

Earlier versions of his wardrobe included loud prints, cowboy boots and skinny jeans. These days, he wears mostly black because it simplifies everything and allows the focus to remain on his silhouette instead.

“I’m actually quite a colourful person,” he says. “I just don’t need colour in my clothes to express that.”

He does not spend much time planning outfits either. Most days, he starts with shoes, then pulls the rest together depending on the weather, where he is going and, sometimes, instinct.

His current wardrobe was accumulated largely during his travels, as well as from luxury multi-brand retailers Dover Street Market Singapore and Club21, where he favours labels such as Chrome Hearts, Rick Owens and Yohji Yamamoto.

These designers appeal to him because they do not constantly reinvent themselves around trends. “I don’t buy often,” he says. “But when I do, I know exactly why I’m buying it.”

Acknowledging that his wardrobe can be expensive, he says the pieces are meant to stay with him for years. He describes the process of building his wardrobe less as “maintaining a style” and more as gradually “building something that lasts”.

“Fast fashion is built around constant change,” he says. “You buy, you wear it a few times and you move on. That doesn’t interest me.”

As for jewellery, silver rings, layered necklaces and Japanese brand Goro’s pieces have become part of his daily uniform.

More unexpectedly, fashion became a point of connection between Mr Tan and his 32-year-old son Royce, an entrepreneur who shares a similar style and introduced him to many of the Japanese labels he wears today.

“You don’t suddenly become a different person because you reach a certain age,” Mr Tan says. “If anything, you become more certain of who you are.”

Most people use their HDB corridor to water plants, dry laundry or collect parcels. Ms Vicsland Poh uses hers as a runway.

The 60-year-old fitness instructor, better known online as @corridorrunwayaunty on TikTok, films most of her outfit videos just before leaving the home – phone propped up along the corridor.

Her videos are a smorgasbord of bright colours, layered accessories, thrifted skirts, oversized silhouettes, printed sets, boots, tote bags and outfits pieced together from a decades-old wardrobe.

Somewhere between the corridor walks and unapologetically colourful styling, the account began attracting attention online after she started posting regularly around late 2024.

Initially, the response was brutal. “When I started on TikTok, the comments were very bad,” she recalls.

Strangers mocked her appearance and questioned why a senior citizen was dressing that way. Some comments hurt enough that she briefly considered replying to defend herself before eventually deciding it was pointless.

Over time, she noticed the hateful comments were pushing her videos further through the algorithm.

“So, I thought, never mind,” she says with a laugh. “Let them do the job for me.”

One particularly viral video featuring a leopard-print two-piece outfit and boots drew especially strong reactions online – though Ms Poh seems far less interested in the attention than in documenting the clothes she enjoys wearing.

Today, she has nearly 2,000 followers on TikTok.

The account started as a “digital journal” where she could archive outfits and memories for herself rather than storing endless photos on her phone.

She had already spent most of her life dressing like this anyway.

Many of the colourful outfits she wears are not dramatically different from how she dressed in her teens and early adulthood as a graphic design undergraduate at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

Portrait drawing teachers sometimes asked her to model for class simply because she arrived wearing “the most things” – layered accessories, colourful clothes and unusual styling combinations that stood out.

“The colours actually help,” she says. “People see you in brighter colours, they also feel good.”

Her style, built from thrift stores, hand-me-downs and old purchases she refuses to throw away, revolves around whatever catches her eye at that moment. She likes unusual silhouettes, vibrant prints, oversized shirts, matching sets and pieces no one else is wearing.

Most of her clothes are from places such as home-grown thrift retailer Refash, church-run second-hand stores and Singapore-based retail chain Fashion One.

Comfort shapes most of her outfit decisions, especially because much of her work involves teaching children’s gymnastics and moving throughout the day.

Yet, that does not mean dressing plainly.

Ms Poh, who is married with a 31-year-old son and 29-year-old daughter, draws inspiration from movies such as 2024 teen comedy-drama Empire Waist, and older fashion content creators on Instagram.

Her relationship with fashion has also slowly influenced the women around her – including her 80-year-old mother, who has been encouraged to experiment with ankle boots and shirts from Uniqlo.

“She’ll ask me how to wear things now,” says Ms Poh, amused.

“Age doesn’t matter, you dress for yourself. If you like who you are, then it’s okay.”