BARBARA'S WORLD - She's 82 & a style icon!

THE FABULOUS FASHIONISTA’S LIVING THE DESIGNER LIFE

- Julie Jacobson

“Boring!” Barbara Brinsley exhales loudly. No, she sighs with mock exasperation, she has no idea how many pairs of shoes she has, or glasses for that matter!

This from the woman who owns one of the country’s most covetous wardrobes and who right now is lying in bed – “recumbent, I haven’t got up yet” – in the clothes she wants to be cremated in. That would be her flamboyant red tartan Royal Stewart dressing gown, which is also her go-to outfit for reading the morning paper. But back to the shoes...

“Obviously I’ve collected shoes, you have to wear something on your feet, but if you know how many pairs of glasses or how many pairs of shoes you have, then you have too much time on your hands! I find all that tedious!”

The delightfully acerbic and bespectacled almost 82-yearold has become something of a poster girl for women of a certain age since being scouted, along with two equally well turned out friends, to model at iD Fashion Week in Dunedin in 2003, subsequently becoming a muse for World.

Her latest undertaking was at the New Zealand Polo Open, where she was asked to curate a retro-chic photo booth in the Veuve Clicquot marquee, with garments from her wardrobe, a decades-in-the-making collection.