Recently, New You magazine published a picture of Carmen dell’Orefice on the cover. This event would hardly have become a sensation if it were not for the age of the model. Carmen dell’Orefice is now 84 years old and first appeared on the cover of Vogue in 1946.
For the duration of her career in the modeling business, Carmen is rightly listed in the Guinness Book of Records. Carmen’s laurels are successfully challenged by Daphne Self: she is already 86, which gives her the right to be considered the oldest model in the world. She just starred in a commercial for Vans sneakers for the Swedish store & Other Stories. In the pictures, Daphne fearlessly poses next to 22-year-old model Flo Dron. It’s easy to interpret this as transparent advertising content: different generations – both grandmothers and granddaughters – are united in their passion for Vans sneakers. But there seems to be something more behind this: a symptom of a new trend – ladies of advanced age are coming into fashion.
Before our eyes, the former glamorous ideal of beauty is rapidly losing ground: a young, thin blonde with measurements of 90-60-90. Instead, new “non-formatted” bodies invade the fashion space: overweight, elderly, disabled, transgender models. And against this background, in recent months, cheerful and elegant beauties of advanced years flashed one after another in the fashion news.
Read more:
- “Our idea of beauty is changing”
Legendary rock singer Joni Mitchell is featured in Saint Laurent’s Spring/Summer 2015 campaign: designer Hedi Slimane created an embroidered, folk-inspired tunic for her that fully matches her style of dressing in her youth. However, at the same time, Mitchell, known for her uncompromising statements, spoke about the creations of Slimane without the on-duty adulation expected from the brand’s “ambassadors”: “These are not innovative works, but they are pleasant to wear, I have had this kind of gizmos in different periods of my life.” And soon a whole series of pictures of Mitchell in designer outfits and a detailed interview with her appeared on the cover of a special spring issue of New York Magazine dedicated to fashion.
In the same vein, the Céline brand has chosen the famous American writer and journalist, 80-year-old Joan Didion, as the face of its new advertising campaign. Her photo in huge black glasses went around the press, but the comments were mixed. Many admirers of Didion’s literary talent were not happy about the appearance of their idol in advertising … Adley Freeman of The Guardian newspaper was indignant: “I get depressed when a fashion brand uses Didion’s reputation and artistic authority to sell exorbitantly expensive glasses” (1). In addition, Joan Didion has been known all her life as a woman with a pronounced individual style: her black turtlenecks and avant-garde jewelry have long passed into the category of iconic things – this factor also increases the “symbolic capital” of Céline advertising. And we’re not talking about the veteran of the “age fashion” 94-year-old Iris Burrell Apfel – after the exhibition of her personal wardrobe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, any costume museum is happy to host this exposition, which now travels the world.
But, perhaps, enough examples – it is obvious that fashion is turning towards older ladies. Why? In the first place here, of course, are socio-economic reasons: according to statistics, the proportion of people of the “third age” in the world population is now increasing, they are solvent, travel a lot, lead an active lifestyle and do not want to dress in modest old women’s dark vestments. Large corporations, of course, meet the requirements of the market, not wanting to miss this promising and profitable segment of the mass market, and fashion for the elderly is now confidently gaining space among all major retailers. Another important factor is that many wealthy clients of haute couture houses are aged ladies from Arab countries, who are very much appreciated by couturiers against the backdrop of a dramatic drop in demand for expensive designer outfits (in fact, thanks to their orders, many haute couture houses only keep afloat). Finally, in political terms, the appeal to the “third” age is fully supported by the ideology of “diversity” (diversity) and tolerance, thanks to which older ladies no longer feel like an “invisible minority”, not embarrassed to publicly declare their desires and preferences. Mature women are now much more than before, actively enjoying life. It is no coincidence that there are many novels about love in adulthood today, such as “On Christmas Eve” by Rosamund Pilcher and “Grandma Poppy” by Noel Chatelet (2).
At one time, Roland Barthes, analyzing the cult of youth and a thin body, stated with regret that “racism of the young” reigns in fashion. Now, it looks like the ice has broken: gray hair is the trend of the season.
1. For details, see
2. R. Pilcher “On Christmas Eve” (Word, 2002); N. Châtelet “Lady in blue. Grandmother is a poppy flower ”(Labyrinth, 2002).