“I tend to see things as I want to see them,” Lana Turner, 76, said when I asked about her dress, which was dotted with white concentric circles on a field of black. It originally existed as two skirts: She had seen the pattern years before and had been on the lookout to acquire something similar. As someone who “likes a 1950s silhouette” and loves to swing dance, the idea to combine the two garments into one piece that would better suit her lifestyle was an easy decision. “I like things that flow,” she said. “I like fabrics that move in the wind.”
I met Turner in Central Harlem on a Sunday in May when the neighborhood was having its annual Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association stoop sale. Though she doesn’t consider herself a “fashion girl,” Turner was no stranger to turning heads: At least five different people interrupted our chat to rave to her about her outfit.
As the head of the Harlem Literary Society and something of a local icon, Turner said she found inspiration from many different corners of the arts. “Style is how I live; what I wear is only a part of that,” she said, adding that it “starts to evolve from books that I read” and “what I see on the stage.”
Her dress, it turned out, was simply an example of a broader point: While her visual presentation might be an amalgamation of many different interests, it always starts from within.
As for her personal style? “I like the idea of femininity,” she said. “I’ve always been that girl.”
Simbarashe Cha is a Times photographer and visual columnist documenting style and fashion around the world.
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