In 2002, Dame Maggie Smith — a family friend — requested that I help her find something to wear to the Oscars. She had been nominated for her performance in Gosford Park playing Constance, the spiky, sharp-tongued Countess of Trentham. At the time, I was the editor-at-large for British Vogue, so the request seemed like a no-brainer.
“No!” “No!” and more “No!” was the shocking response from the top fashion houses I asked to dress her. “She’s a bit old for us,” they said. She was 67, with two Oscars and a clutch of other prestigious awards under her belt. “Not really our demographic,” they added. Finally, after much persuasion, Armani graciously “allowed” the actress to borrow something off the shelf.
How times have changed. Nowadays, many designers who historically have targeted very young women are also embracing an audience that has hit its sixties — and beyond. At 88, Dame Maggie Smith is one of the new faces of Loewe, posed against a brick wall wearing an oversized, shaggy brown faux fur coat and clutching the house’s best-selling Puzzle bag for its spring/summer 2024 campaign. In the photo, shot by Juergen Teller, the lines on her face and bony fingers remain unretouched.
Photography by Juergen Teller/Courtesy of LOEWE
And it’s happening everywhere. Dame Vanessa Redgrave, 86, was chosen by Daniel Lee to join Burberry’s 2023 campaign and made a front-row appearance at the show in one of its classic trench coats, her silver shoulder-length bob tucked inside the collar, sporting her favorite comfy Ugg boots (she wears them all the time). Following in the footsteps of the iconic Catherine Deneuve, longtime Saint Laurent ami de la maison, who reemerged in a campaign in 2021 — aged 77 — we now have Diana Ross, 79, fronting its spring/summer 2024 campaign.
We also just saw 63-year-old Kristin Scott Thomas, her gray hair swept back, face almost free of makeup, walking at Miu Miu. And, at 67, Jerry Hall — who walked Karl Lagerfeld’s shows in the seventies — starred in a series of portraits released ahead of Chloe’s first show by Chemena Kamali, its new creative director.
Embracing the beauty of older women first became a “thing” in 2015, when Phoebe Philo used then-80-year-old writer Joan Didion as a model in her sunglasses campaign during her tenure at the helm of Celine. Rarely seen without her oversized glasses, Didion was widely regarded in her time not only as a writer but also as an extremely stylish woman, so there was logic — and relevance — to the choice. Nowadays, it’s no longer about the shock factor of using older models — it’s about celebrating them. And the trend seems to be eliciting a positive response from consumers.
Photography by Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images
“Today,” says The Telegraph’s Fashion Director Lisa Armstrong, “you see 50-year-old Victoria Beckham running around in a miniskirt or wearing a slip dress as the mother of the groom, and no one is saying, ‘Oh, my God, look at her!’ They are saying, ‘Oh! Where can I get that dress?’”
Of course, appealing to an older audience also makes good business sense. In 2020, consumers aged 50-plus contributed $45 trillion to the global GDP, or 34% of the total, according to AARP’s “Global Longevity Economy Outlook Report.” Millennials and Gen Xers have substantially less spending power.
I am 62. I have loved fashion since I was a young teenager, longing to walk in platform heels and find the courage to set foot inside the uber-cool Biba store. I still love it. I look after myself, am fit and have regular tweakments; I am not about to stop now. When I think of how my mother was dressing at my age, it amazes me how defined “dressing your age” was back then. There was so much talk about being “age appropriate” and not looking like “mutton dressed as lamb.” My mother had morphed into a fusty, middle-aged woman by her mid-thirties and by 60 wore a uniform of elastic-waisted trousers, “comfy” shirts and sensible shoes. She dressed like her peers. Now, when I can’t find something in my wardrobe, I know that my 25-year-old daughter has been helping herself. Our styles are similar. I wear track pants and hoodies, and I’m obsessed with On sneakers, as is she. But I also indulge in classic designer investment pieces. The market has me at both ends of the age spectrum. As Donatella Versace — a spring chicken at 68 — told me, “If I think back to how my mother dressed and compare it to the way I dress — she would have been shocked at what I wear! Today, we see huge benefits in representing all the generations.”
Photography by Dia Dipasupil
Instagram is now flooded with silver-haired style. My current favorite is former Fordham Graduate School of Social Service Professor Lyn Slater, Ph.D., aka the Accidental Icon. As she writes in her style blog, “I was having trouble finding blogs about women living interesting but ordinary lives in cities. Women who are not famous or celebrities but are smart, creative, fashion-forward, fit, thoughtful, engaged and comfortable with who they are.” Her refreshingly exuberant blog has earned her brand partnerships and, most recently, a book deal.
Like Slater, the fashion houses have realized that women of all ages crave the confidence to be themselves. Earlier this year, when I had tea with a makeup-free Pamela Anderson, the 56-year-old bombshell told me how her career was reignited after she couldn’t face the rigmarole of a “glam squad” at Paris Fashion Week, so she went barefaced instead. The result? Mass hysteria. The public was so obsessed, she was soon gracing the cover of at least four major fashion magazines, fronting Proenza Schouler’s spring/summer 2024 campaign, turning heads at the Met Ball and serving as the face of her own clean skincare brand, Sonsie. “We need to embrace age,” makeup maven Bobbi Brown told me on a recent visit to London. (At 67, she has learned to use TikTok to host beauty tutorials for women of all ages.) “We have character lines on our faces and that’s OK.”
This March, 74-year-old Miuccia Prada graced the cover of British Vogue. The message couldn’t be more clear: Older women are here to stay and chic as ever. I intend to live to 100; I just wonder what I’ll be wearing to my party?
