Super-glam model Carmen Dell'Orefice walked the Alberta Ferretti fashion show this past January, and — in a world where 16 is considered mature — rocked the runway in Florence at the sprightly age of 79!
Known for her patrician look and luxurious silver mane, Dell-Orefice has often stood for the “shock and wow” when a brand needed a bit of buzz. She has been the poster girl this decade for brands as diverse as Target and Rolex, giving them the gravitas of beauty rather than just another pretty face, and offering a kind of sophisticated knowingness that seemed, well . . . sexy. The thing is, whereas once she was the one and only, now she is just one of the many who are showing their age and then some.
Shocking as the idea may seem, the notion has some high-powered followers. Tom Ford, the designer who remade fusty Gucci into a red-hot brand in the 1990s, is an unapologetic agent provocateur. The man who once had a model’s pubic area monogrammed with a Gucci G was guest editor of Paris Vogue’s December issue and showed a a spread — if you pardon the expression — with decidedly elderly yet beautiful, well-dressed if semi-clad models going at it. Seriously going at it. A pair of models devouring each other’s weathered flesh in a manner more commonly seen in youth-driven fantasies. No soft focus here, the lines and spots are part of the celebration; the photos are shocking, scandalous even, but utterly beautiful. Given Ford’s track record as tastemaker, this could well be the dawn of a hot new paradigm.
And then there are blogs that shake up the old ideas of age. Advanced Style, by Ari Seth Cohen, 29, demonstrates that fashion is having a senior moment. Daily street shots show stylish seniors in their finest, and chronicle the fashionable, cultural lives of a generation that actually has the time and money to indulge in such things.
“My grandmother is a great inspiration,” says Cohen. “But I also noticed that young people were dressing in vintage and mixing it with new stuff and talking about that as an inspiration and trying to find their own style and I realized this is already walking down the street in older people’s personal style. They already demonstrate that trend younger people are trying to adapt.”
Cohen, based in New York, chronicles stylish and often quirky get-ups of a crowd that’s largely ignored by the fashion system. “From a style point of view, I find them more interesting because they are of an age where they don’t dress to impress, they know who they are and they’re doing it for themselves.”
While beauty companies are starting to at least dip a toe in waters other than those from the fountain of youth — actresses of some maturity including Diane Keaton, Cate Blanchett and Julia Roberts stand for various skin care regimes and potions in the burgeoning and rich “anti-aging” category — fashion itself is still dewy-skinned, with youngsters modeling for posh fashion houses whose clothes are actually aimed at their mothers, and which their peers could never afford.
But Cohen’s idea that style gets better with age has caught on. Selfridges, the U.K. sister to Holt Renfrew, held an exhibition of his work last summer and what’s on magazine Time Out London had him contribute street shots and stories on what the elderly were wearing. Cohen has been covered by the New York Times T Magazine, and profiled in the U.K. Telegraph. Advanced Style is now part of a burgeoning number of similar offerings.
Moses Znaimer, the lifelong paradigm shifter who started the Citytv media empire with its signature undone and elegantly amateur format, busted new ground yet again he founded the ZoomerMedia empire three years ago and had the audacity to suggest that age can be sexy and stylish. Based in part on the definitely not-hot Canadian Association of Retired Persons, Znaimer’s big aha! was the notion that there was nothing tired or tawdry about growing older, and that these boomer years, or zoomer years as he’d prefer them to be known, are the best of your life.
“There’s an old stereotype that suggests people of a certain age are no longer attractive, and don’t find themselves attractive and that’s simply false,” says Suzanne Boyd, glamorous editor in chief of Zoomer magazine, a publication devoted to life after 40 and part of the ZoomerMedia empire. “The Zoomer philosophy is the opposite: With age you are coming into yourself, you are feeling good about yourself and sexual desire doesn’t go away.”
The magazine launched in October 2008 and has covered sex and sexuality with unblinking clarity.
“Sex is part of our health coverage, and our view is it’s part of well-being, physically and mentally,” says Boyd. “We decided to be frank about sex and sexuality — the good, the bad and the ugly.” The approach has generated stories that provoke: a profile of an 80-year-old Japanese porn star; a story on sex in nursing homes; another on sex positions to try if you’re knees are bad.
Boyd suggests this is a loosening of the stranglehold of youth on determining what’s sexy now. While a grey-haired man has always been considered virile regardless of age, now women are starting to be allowed the same consideration.
“Older women are more often being considered as sexy,” says Boyd. “Look at stars such as Helen Mirren. She’s a very sexual presence and really gives off that energy, and is stronger and more popular now than ever before.”
The cool girls are already on it.
Super-est of supermodels Kate Moss, the starter of many a trend, showed off “grey lights” in her hair in February 2010 at the launch of the bags she designed for Longchamp. Kristen McMenamy, a 1990s supermodel, is back in the game, too, and seems extra-cool for letting her long hair go naturally gorgeously grey. At age 47, McMenamy closed Chanel’s most recent couture runway show wearing the house’s traditional grand finale, a wedding gown.
“Sexuality was always attached to youth and fertility, part of the biological imperative,” says Boyd. “Sex as an older person is one of the last taboos. But with age comes a confidence. One of the grace notes of aging is that you become more accepting of yourself and others, and self -acceptance and confidence is sexy.”
And, sex, sans any biological imperative, is unabashedly about having a very good time, full stop.
Or, more likely, don’t stop.
Tracy Nesdoly
http://www.thestar.com/living/fashion/article/931456--silver-sirens-are-now-worth-gold
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