84-year-old Silver Tetsuya is a former chemistry teacher and principal who resides in the Akita Prefecture of Japan and has an impressive 100K followers on Instagram. What exactly draws people to Tetsuya's page? He dresses up in his grandson Naoya Kudo’s clothing and absolutely rocks every look.
Tetsuya looks just as good in these high-fashion outfits as any other Instagram influencer and he doesn't even know how to use social media! He may be a retired teacher but he is schooling all of us right now.
Stone Cold Silver Tetsuya
On a trip home to Japan for the Golden Week in May 2019, Naoya Kudo decided he wanted to have his grandfather Silver Tetsuya try on some of his clothes as entertainment for both of them. After taking a few photos and tweeting them out, Kudo quickly realized that Tetsuya was becoming a viral hit, and decided to create an Instagram and Tumblr page so he could share more pictures of his grandfather.
In just six weeks, Tetsuya’s Instagram page @slvr.tty, run by Kudo, has gained 100K followers and counting. Kudo said he has been gaining up to 10,000 followers a day.
Rural Grandpa No More
In an interview, Kudo said, “it was quite a transformation to see my rural grandpa, who has no interest in fashion, in outfits he would never consider wearing on his own.” Tetsuya was apparently “surprisingly enthusiastic” about participating, and was heavily involved in choosing the locations for their shoots and suggesting poses.
The rest of Naoya and Tetsuya's family are big supporters of the project as well. They "went wild when they first saw him dressed up," said Kudo.
Could Grandma Be The Next Project?
Part of what people love about Tetsuya’s photos is that his pictures also sometimes feature touches of his own clothing like long johns and muscle pain patches, which Kudo believes “added a nice personal touch.” Tetsuya is just proving to us that you can still be high fashion and wear long underwear!
Tetsuya’s wife has made an appearance on his Instagram as well, and followers were quick to respond, urging Naoya to dress up his grandmother as his next project to help her step her game up to her husband’s level.
The Content Keeps On Coming
The inspiration for the outfits all come from things Kudo has worn himself, so everything Tetsuya wears already belonged to his grandson. Kudo has said he has many more pictures to share of Tetsuya so the content will keep coming until he runs out or has the opportunity to go home to Japan.
Kudo has also said that since his grandfather doesn’t actually use social media, he hopes to collect all the photos and put them in an album as a surprise gift to Tetsuya.
Teaching After Retirement
Tetsuya was a former principal and chemistry teacher and refers to his 100K+ Instagram followers as his current “students.” Kudo says he’s hoping in the future he may be able to get some of Tetsuya’s former students to participate in the photoshoots alongside his grandfather.
With his growing popularity online, it looks like Tetsuya will continue to teach long after his retirement. What do you want to see next from the grandson and grandfather duo?
