Hands that have lived: Karen Walker & Advanced Style collaborate
My 52-year-old hands have their fair share of wrinkles, veins and age spots. I know I probably should have taken more care of them (years of cycling without sun screen hasn’t helped) but they are my hands and they work. And that’s what they look like. And the latest Karen Walker jewellery campaign shot by Ari Seth Cohen shows us what 93 and 78-year-old hands look like. Beautiful.
The Magic Hands campaign features Advanced Stylistas: Phyllis Sues, a 93-year-old former Ballet Russes star turned fashion designer and yoga fanatic, and actor, model and 78-year-old great grandmother Roberta Haze. The manicures, the jewellery and the styling are all magic.
In 2013, Karen Walker collaborated with Ari Seth Cohen and some of his Advanced Style Stars on a sunglasses campaign and now the two are showing jewellery in a wonderful way. ‘Hands can be every bit as expressive as faces,’ says Walker. ‘These Magic Hands speak of a life well-lived and they absolutely have their own stories to tell.’
Read more about the campaign HERE.
Discussion (28 Comments)
Evelyn Olson-Smith says:
Love this article……at 73 years of age, my hands have also lived, and I would not have it any other way.
Roz says:
At 74 years young, I would be totally ashamed if my hands looked like any of those shown here.
Another great post, thank you! I hate the saying that a woman’s hands give her true age away… Assuming that you don’t want people to know your true age, and your default position is lie about it!
Nancy says:
I’ve never heard a man talk about his hands and how they look. I respect my hands for all they do for me, so I do my best to look after them and treat them well. Perhaps they are a truer reflection of who I am–no make up to hide the veins and wrinkles, but decked out with rings!
My hands look a lot older than my face. Like you Allyson, many years on my bike, or gripping a canoe paddle, with no sunscreen on my hands has taken its toll. Still they’re my hands, my mother’s hands, and my grandmother’s hands. My mum turned 89 the other day and for some reason we were discussing hands. She said when she kneaded bread dough, or rolled out cookie dough she saw her mother’s hands instead of her own. I do the same. We none of look very much alike…but we have the same hands. Part of my heritage, I guess.
Cassandra says:
This is very poignant and beautiful, and encourages me to beautify the hands as a form of gratitude for what they do. Thank you. The best of your posts communicate this, both a happy appreciation for our changing looks and a quiet (or not so quiet) f**k you to our culture’s ridiculous age-shaming.
Lee says:
Thank you for this lovely post, I am heading to the bank to collect my rings. How silly, I stopped wearing rings or nail polish because I didn’t want to bring attention to my hands.
Joanna says:
All our hands age differently. I do see women with young, beautiful looking hands while mine have aged with life. I didn’t wear gloves while cleaning, or sunscreen while enjoying the great outdoors, nor did I cream enough. Like Lee, I stopped wearing nail polish and rings about ten years ago. I don’t judge others, so why myself? Thank you for this post!
Anna K says:
I love old hands like those in the pix here. My hands have never been beautiful but since the menopause they have been disastrous – my nails split, fray and break despite much cossetting. My skillful manicurist holds them together somehow but they are the bane of my life. I have a huge diamond ring inherited from my godmother that I would love to wear but I don’t want to draw attention to my mitts!
Vicci Bentley says:
Call me perverse, but I actually prefer my freckly, veiny, gardener’s hands now to when they were younger. I love older hands – they express a lifetime of creativity, industry, nurturing, healing – and loving, dammit – which would be a tragedy to conceal even if we could. But I so know where Anna K is coming from – I slather mine in hand cream every night to keep tough cuticles, brittle nails and the odd outbreak of eczema to a minimum. Try this trick: massage olive oil into the nails base, then apply a no-nonsense hand cream such as E45 Intensive. If they’re really dry and rough, buff them all over with a soft nailbrush first to exfoliate first. Or use your
Clarisonic, if you have one. And do wear those diamonds!Joanna says:
I agree with you, hands that look like they actually do (and have done) things like cooking and gardening are much the nicest and I love their owners’ use of nail varnish to show their hands some love. I prefer shorter nails like the nails with dark nail varnish pictured because long nails can make hands a bit too claw-like for my taste, (even if the long finger nailed person is young). I love the mixture of almost homeliness and glamour – it’s so very human and all the more beautiful for that.
Wendy in York says:
I heard of someone who , when she goes on cruises , checks to see which women have the least primped hands , to make friends with them . She says they are the interesting ones . She’d make a beeline for me !
Linda says:
Oh, I love this! I grow veg, cook, paint and make sculpture. I have one finger badly twisted at the top joint, not pretty, but I’m proud of what my hands can do.
Jane says:
I’m very fond of my ageing hands which are exactly like my dad’s. They serve me well, have no arthritis and continue to remind me of Dad every time I look at them.
Annie G says:
My older hands have more character than my younger versions. Even now that they are getting on the gnarled side. I admit to taking care of them because they have to do me for a good deal longer. Ditto feet. The hands above show self-respect.
shoequeen61 says:
I just love, Love, LOVE this campaign!!! Reminds me of two VERY important women in my life who have now gone one– My Mother and my Godmother. Two women who lived at opposite ends of the spectrum– The former a housekeeper turned baby nurse and the latter; an actual “lady who lunched.” They both wore rings– one occasionally and the other continually. But those lovely hands of theirs all dressed up in their jewelry box finery… Oh how I miss them♥ Thank you Karen and Ari for this glorious collaboration! And Alyson for this wonderful post!
Tiffany says:
My mother stopped wearing rings in her late 50s because of how her hands looked. I thought that was so sad. I have had witchy hands since I was quite young, and I wear LOTS of rings and plan never to stop wearing them. I like my gnarly hands – they’ve done many things and I’m not ashamed that they show it.
maudie says:
Oh how I agree with everyone (maybe, except Roz). I love my nearly 60 year old hands. I, too, looks at my daughter’s hands, my own and remember my mothers’ and grandmothers’ hands and I am reminded of a Russian doll. How each generation has fitted inside each other and although it sounds a bit overly poetic and cliched there is a Circle of Life about our hands. Post menopause my nails are brittle and dry and my hands can never absorb enough hand cream (when I remember to use it) – I wear rings and bangles, love nail polish. I cannot express my joy at this campaign enough.
Jacqueline Gibson says:
I have always had “old” hands, I was born with a thousand lines on each palm, they are dry, they are thin – the bones stick through and the veins show and often stick out. I am not kind to them, I am an artist and you can’t create sculpture work in rubber gloves so there’s no use worrying about them and that’s that. Life is too short to worry about hand wrinkles and all the hands in this post are fabulous, I would love to be at a dinner party with their owners. Jacque.
PS anyone suffering from flaking, breaking nails could try taking a zinc supplement. Since swallowing a daily zinc pill my nails grow strong and at a tremendous rate, I cut them short though – can’t play the guitar with long nails.
Sarah 
Susan 
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But maybe that gives our older hands to bring back beautiful gloves too-?