The mature models at the very top of high fashion
A mother and daughter modelling team are living proof that grey is the new black
Working in an industry obsessed with flawless youth, every model worth her salt has a tale to tell about how she was spotted out of the blue before she’d even sat her GCSEs.
Kate Moss was
famously discovered aged 14 in JFK airport. Giselle Bündchen was also
14 and mid-way through a McDonalds meal when her life changed forever.
And as for Frances Dunscombe? Well, her story is arguably most
extraordinary of all; the grandmother from Surrey was accompanying her
daughter to a modelling agency when she caught the eye of the talent
scout and found herself eagerly snapped up – at the age of 82.
And now both women have been launched as the faces of tomorrow- as well as of yesterday.
At www.studiomango.co.uk we cater for all ages :)
At www.studiomango.co.uk we cater for all ages :)
Annabel Davis has been a professional model for only a year but has already amassed an impressively varied portfolio.
One minute she’s sashaying down the catwalk in a designer fashion show, the next she’s taking part in a photoshoot for a commercial or even appearing as an extra in a Hollywood film. ‘The phone hasn’t stopped ringing,’ she laughs.
It’s easy to see why. Standing at a statuesque 5ft 8in with a slim but curvaceous size ten figure, she has long tanned limbs, razor sharp cheekbones and ice-blue eyes. But Annabel also has silver grey hair and plenty of laughter lines.
And Lanvin unveiled 82-year-old grandmother Jacquie Tajah Murdock as the face of one of its autumn campaigns after plucking her from the streets of her native Harlem. Dolce and Gabbana too have chosen 82-year-old Daphne Selfe for a lavish advertising campaign. Over at Bulgari, it’s a more spritely 60-year-old Isabella Rossellini.
But it’s not only high fashion. On the High Street, Marks & Spencer was one of the first out of the starting blocks when, in 2005, they hired Twiggy, 63 next week, to take part in their promotional campaigns.
Agencies have started to realise that older models can have just as much commercial clout as women decades their junior — a trend Annabel, from London, knew nothing about when she spotted an advert for mature models last year and applied on a whim.
A former police officer whose ‘patch’ took in Heathrow Airport, Annabel had retired and thought there was little likelihood of being taken seriously.
She says: ‘It was a case of thinking “well this could be fun”. But I was signed up immediately and the agency told me not under any circumstances to change the colour of my hair. They said there was a real market for models with silver or white hair.’
At her first shoot for prestigious photographic agency Getty, the director said she should view her hair as a prized asset. ‘He told me that when you’re a model in your teens or 20s, there’s a huge pool of talent out there. But with every decade, that pool becomes smaller and smaller and older models are like gold dust,’ she says.
‘I’ve been incredibly touched by the
positive reaction I’ve got from audiences at fashion shows. People have
said I’m inspirational. And younger models look at me and think: “Wow,
maybe I do have a career once I’m past 30 after all.”
‘There’s definitely a market out there for us wrinkly models, and although I don’t rely on it for a living, I have earned a reasonable amount in the past year.’
Her usual going rate is £250 a day, although she is happy to work for free for students and novice filmmakers.
It’s a view firmly echoed by 71-year-old Usha Hands, from Nottingham, whose stunning looks have continued to flower, courtesy of her exotic parentage — her father was from Kashmir and her mother from Vienna.
At 5ft 6in and a neat size 8-10, she has also been working two or three days a week after a photographer friend submitted her photograph to a leading London agency.
‘When he showed them to a model agency they phoned and said they were sure they could get me work,’ she recalls. ‘I was terribly surprised and not really convinced, but decided I had nothing to lose.’
She got her first assignment almost immediately, an infomercial for a high-end property company. ‘I was the oldest person there, but it didn’t matter,’ she says. ‘You’re there to do a job. I’m now on my own after my husband passed away 18 months ago, and in some ways modelling has kept me going.’
Usha was a model in London in the Sixties, but after having her daughter Catherine, now 38, believed her career was long over. Now, however the assignments keep rolling in. ‘I’ve been working pretty constantly from 2004 onwards,’ she says. Commercial work, shopping channels, some catwalks for local designers.
‘I do a lot of skin products and hair shows. I’ve got good hair — the joke is that I’m something of a silver fox. Even so, I do think it’s been extraordinary I’ve kept going.’
Less extraordinary, perhaps, when you look at the economic argument. As Crispin Reed, marketing expert and co-author of The Seven Myths of Middle Age points out, over-50s account for 40 per cent of all consumer expenditure in the UK. ‘They buy 80 per cent of all top-of-the-range cars, 50 per cent of all face-care cosmetics and 50 per cent of mineral water,’ he says.
Yet despite this powerful silver pound, more than 90 per cent of all marketing and advertising in the UK is dedicated to the under 50s. In a survey, 86 per cent of over-50s said most online advertising is irrelevant to them. Beyond a certain age, it seems, millions of people all but cease to exist as far as the media and marketing companies are concerned.
Until now, perhaps. As Anna, booker at leading UK model agency www.studiomango.co.uk points out, many of her contemporaries are realising the potent power of the older model.
‘There’s a market for older models that wasn’t there 15 years ago and it’s getting bigger, and I think the reason is largely economic,’ she says. ‘There’s a generation of older women with great buying power who don’t want to be in blue rinses and long skirts and they want to see women who inspire them.’
