Nowadays, we’re all glad to be grey. Or so we’re told. Apparently it’s never been so fashionable to be wrinkly. Look at the novelist Joan Didion in the new ultra-cool photo shoot for high-end French fashion brand Celine, wearing a tight black pullover, giant sunglasses and what looks like a brass cowbell around her neck. She’s 80. Or the latest campaign from Dolce & Gabbana. No skinny scantily-clad 20-somethings here, but instead three old women in widow’s black — very chic, naturally — clasping D&G’s latest must-have handbags. I’m guessing they’re all well past their 70th birthday. Novelist Joan Didion, 80, (pictured) stars in this season's Celine campaign, Joan is just one example of older models being used in high fashion advertising . Then there’s singer Joni Mitchell, 71, all over the new Yves Saint Laurent advertisements, lost in music as she plucks at her guitar. And Daphne Selfe, the 86-year-old British model and another D&G veteran, whose career seemingly goes from strength to strength. Meanwhile, finger-on-the-pulse fashion store Selfridges has this year scrapped its annual Bright Young Things showcase — in which it introduces the work of trend-setting young designers — and instead launched Bright Old Things, a platform for stylish 50 to 80-somethings and a celebration, so the shop says, of the ‘retirement renaissance’. Whatever that means. Old ladies, it seems, are having a moment. As though the style-gurus have suddenly decreed that being young is a bit, well, passé. The Dolce and Gabbana Spring/Summer 2015 campaign (pictured) also stars three stylish older women . But why, I wonder? Have the fashionistas at last woken up to the beauty of the ageing female face? Are we, the over-70s, the new Cara Delevingnes? Well, forgive me for being cynical. But I don’t think so. Deep down the fashion industry doesn’t for a moment believe that older women can be style icons, and never has. This is not about grey power, but about the power to shock. For the way in which these older women are photographed by the fashion industry — all sagging skin and lifeless hair and stark lighting with its deep, dark shadows — does them no favours. The images are striking and headline-grabbing, but they are not designed to lure my generation into the shops. I am 74 and have spent more than 50 years in and around the fashion industry — and believe me, there has never been a time when youth was not worshipped as the most desirable quality in a woman. Every woman, whatever her age, was always assumed to want it. Why on earth would you aspire to look old? Joni Mitchell, pictured in 2013, is all over the new Yves Saint Laurent campaign for 2015 . And they do look very old, these women. Only Joan Didion could carry off the austere look she’s been given, make-up free and with her grey hair combed flat. I admire her intellect enormously, but I don’t want to look like her in the Celine advert, and it doesn’t make me want to buy the sunglasses. But these advertisements are not directed at me and my generation. They are far too exclusive for that, with their sheen of urban sophistication and layers of irony. Look at us, they say: aren’t we radical? Putting wrinkly old ladies in young women’s clothes. These ads are still designed to sell frocks to the young. At best they are a bit of fun; at worst, they poke fun. At a pinch they might be art. But truly they are not busting any myths about the fashion industry. Oddly enough I find the Marks & Spencer campaigns much more ground-breaking. In the M&S advertisements, older women feature alongside younger ones, and all of them look stylish, elegant and chic. Older women want to be fashionable — but they also want to be taken seriously, and to be offered clothes in which they will look their best. All of this seems very familiar to me. I made my name as a model during the ‘youthquake’, when the elegant grown-up fashions of the Fifties were forgotten in the rush to celebrate all things young. Neat suits and white gloves gave way to mini-dresses and hot pants. These were not looks anyone over 25 could successfully attempt. No wonder models were on the whole judged past their sell-by-date at 30. I once appeared in a fashion campaign at the geriatric age of 47. When Ralph Lauren’s PRs rang to ask if I would appear in a group shoot, I assumed they’d made a mistake and felt obliged to warn them I was ‘no spring chicken’. To my huge surprise, they still wanted me, and in the end I did a shoot on my own. Yet my appearance in the campaign — wearing well-cut jodhpurs and plain shirt — was still considered daring, Vogue magazine took the time to comment on the ‘originality’ of my inclusion. Like the older women in the current ads, I was a faddish anomaly. But by making news in the right magazine, I served my purpose. Sandra Howard (pictured) is 74 and was featured in a Ralph Lauren campaign at 47. She says her appearance in the campaign was considered daring even then, whereas now the designers are picking far older women . The real proof that fashion hasn’t fundamentally changed is on the shop floor. Old age may have been designated ‘chic’ this season, but it remains very difficult to find smart, stylish clothes that are suitable for a woman of my age. And why do designers still think all 70-year-olds — except those in daft adverts — should be wearing beige? It’s a killer of a colour that makes almost everybody look washed out. There is, however, one sector of the business that has started to get it right. Julia Roberts, 47, (pictured) is the new face of Givenchy cosmetics. Sandra says that the make-up industry is are the real champions of the fashionable pensioner . At 47, actress Julia Roberts has been hired as new face of Givenchy cosmetics. Indeed, the real champions of the fashionable pensioner are the make-up companies. At last they have begun to appreciate who their real customers are, and how much disposable cash they have. A third of the British population is aged over 50, while most major household spending decisions are taken by women aged between 40 and 60. More women over the age of 50 are working than ever before. Twenty years ago, the radiant Isabella Rossellini was famously dropped by make-up company Lancôme for being ‘too old’ days after her 40th birthday. Sandra Howard saus she found Marks and Spencer's 2011 adverts featuring veteran models like Twiggy (centre) alongside younger models far more groundbreaking than those solely showing older women . But that ridiculous ageism is long gone in the cosmetics industry. Look at the L’Oreal advertisements starring Dame Helen Mirren, 69. Who wouldn’t want to look like her — whatever their age? Or for that matter, like Charlotte Rampling, 68, who smouldered in last year’s campaign for Nars cosmetics? These women are allowed to look beautiful rather than bizarre. And as they know so well, real style is ageless. There aren’t many good things about growing old, but one is that you start to care much less what other people think about you. Which is a good thing in my book. Otherwise we’d all be posing in sunglasses and polo necks and impractical dresses which would look much better on our daughters. Or our grand-daughters, come to that.
Joan Didion for Celine, Joni Mitchell for Yves Saint Laurent and Daphne Self, a D&G veteran, are all examples of older models of the moment .
But is this really a nod to the older generation or is it just a shock tactic?
Sandra Howard says these ads are not directed at her and her generation but just a new way of selling clothes to the young .
Nowadays, we’re all glad to be grey. Or so we’re told. Apparently it’s never been so fashionable to be wrinkly. Look at the novelist Joan Didion in the new ultra-cool photo shoot for high-end French fashion brand Celine, wearing a tight black pullover, giant sunglasses and what looks like a brass cowbell around her neck. She’s 80. Or the latest campaign from Dolce & Gabbana. No skinny scantily-clad 20-somethings here, but instead three old women in widow’s black — very chic, naturally — clasping D&G’s latest must-have handbags. I’m guessing they’re all well past their 70th birthday. Novelist Joan Didion, 80, (pictured) stars in this season's Celine campaign, Joan is just one example of older models being used in high fashion advertising . Then there’s singer Joni Mitchell, 71, all over the new Yves Saint Laurent advertisements, lost in music as she plucks at her guitar. And Daphne Selfe, the 86-year-old British model and another D&G veteran, whose career seemingly goes from strength to strength. Meanwhile, finger-on-the-pulse fashion store Selfridges has this year scrapped its annual Bright Young Things showcase — in which it introduces the work of trend-setting young designers — and instead launched Bright Old Things, a platform for stylish 50 to 80-somethings and a celebration, so the shop says, of the ‘retirement renaissance’. Whatever that means. Old ladies, it seems, are having a moment. As though the style-gurus have suddenly decreed that being young is a bit, well, passé. The Dolce and Gabbana Spring/Summer 2015 campaign (pictured) also stars three stylish older women . But why, I wonder? Have the fashionistas at last woken up to the beauty of the ageing female face? Are we, the over-70s, the new Cara Delevingnes? Well, forgive me for being cynical. But I don’t think so. Deep down the fashion industry doesn’t for a moment believe that older women can be style icons, and never has. This is not about grey power, but about the power to shock. For the way in which these older women are photographed by the fashion industry — all sagging skin and lifeless hair and stark lighting with its deep, dark shadows — does them no favours. The images are striking and headline-grabbing, but they are not designed to lure my generation into the shops. I am 74 and have spent more than 50 years in and around the fashion industry — and believe me, there has never been a time when youth was not worshipped as the most desirable quality in a woman. Every woman, whatever her age, was always assumed to want it. Why on earth would you aspire to look old? Joni Mitchell, pictured in 2013, is all over the new Yves Saint Laurent campaign for 2015 . And they do look very old, these women. Only Joan Didion could carry off the austere look she’s been given, make-up free and with her grey hair combed flat. I admire her intellect enormously, but I don’t want to look like her in the Celine advert, and it doesn’t make me want to buy the sunglasses. But these advertisements are not directed at me and my generation. They are far too exclusive for that, with their sheen of urban sophistication and layers of irony. Look at us, they say: aren’t we radical? Putting wrinkly old ladies in young women’s clothes. These ads are still designed to sell frocks to the young. At best they are a bit of fun; at worst, they poke fun. At a pinch they might be art. But truly they are not busting any myths about the fashion industry. Oddly enough I find the Marks & Spencer campaigns much more ground-breaking. In the M&S advertisements, older women feature alongside younger ones, and all of them look stylish, elegant and chic. Older women want to be fashionable — but they also want to be taken seriously, and to be offered clothes in which they will look their best. All of this seems very familiar to me. I made my name as a model during the ‘youthquake’, when the elegant grown-up fashions of the Fifties were forgotten in the rush to celebrate all things young. Neat suits and white gloves gave way to mini-dresses and hot pants. These were not looks anyone over 25 could successfully attempt. No wonder models were on the whole judged past their sell-by-date at 30. I once appeared in a fashion campaign at the geriatric age of 47. When Ralph Lauren’s PRs rang to ask if I would appear in a group shoot, I assumed they’d made a mistake and felt obliged to warn them I was ‘no spring chicken’. To my huge surprise, they still wanted me, and in the end I did a shoot on my own. Yet my appearance in the campaign — wearing well-cut jodhpurs and plain shirt — was still considered daring, Vogue magazine took the time to comment on the ‘originality’ of my inclusion. Like the older women in the current ads, I was a faddish anomaly. But by making news in the right magazine, I served my purpose. Sandra Howard (pictured) is 74 and was featured in a Ralph Lauren campaign at 47. She says her appearance in the campaign was considered daring even then, whereas now the designers are picking far older women . The real proof that fashion hasn’t fundamentally changed is on the shop floor. Old age may have been designated ‘chic’ this season, but it remains very difficult to find smart, stylish clothes that are suitable for a woman of my age. And why do designers still think all 70-year-olds — except those in daft adverts — should be wearing beige? It’s a killer of a colour that makes almost everybody look washed out. There is, however, one sector of the business that has started to get it right. Julia Roberts, 47, (pictured) is the new face of Givenchy cosmetics. Sandra says that the make-up industry is are the real champions of the fashionable pensioner . At 47, actress Julia Roberts has been hired as new face of Givenchy cosmetics. Indeed, the real champions of the fashionable pensioner are the make-up companies. At last they have begun to appreciate who their real customers are, and how much disposable cash they have. A third of the British population is aged over 50, while most major household spending decisions are taken by women aged between 40 and 60. More women over the age of 50 are working than ever before. Twenty years ago, the radiant Isabella Rossellini was famously dropped by make-up company Lancôme for being ‘too old’ days after her 40th birthday. Sandra Howard saus she found Marks and Spencer's 2011 adverts featuring veteran models like Twiggy (centre) alongside younger models far more groundbreaking than those solely showing older women . But that ridiculous ageism is long gone in the cosmetics industry. Look at the L’Oreal advertisements starring Dame Helen Mirren, 69. Who wouldn’t want to look like her — whatever their age? Or for that matter, like Charlotte Rampling, 68, who smouldered in last year’s campaign for Nars cosmetics? These women are allowed to look beautiful rather than bizarre. And as they know so well, real style is ageless. There aren’t many good things about growing old, but one is that you start to care much less what other people think about you. Which is a good thing in my book. Otherwise we’d all be posing in sunglasses and polo necks and impractical dresses which would look much better on our daughters. Or our grand-daughters, come to that.
campaign, Joan is just one example of older power to shock. For the way in which these older old? Joni Mitchell, pictured in 2013, is all over the new Yves Saint Laurent campaign for 2015 . sunglasses. But these advertisements are not directed at me and my generation. They are far ladies in young women’s clothes. These ads are after her 40th birthday. Sandra Howard saus she