Retirement renaissance
It appears that individuals over 60 are having their moment in fashion. First was the news that Céline had picked the writer Joan Didion to star in its new campaign. The Juergen Teller photograph features Didion — the author of The Year of Magical Thinking, Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album — in a black polo neck, her face almost obscured by giant sunglasses.
Then, days after, came Saint Laurent’s announcement of Joni Mitchell as its latest model, part of the French house’s Music Project. The Canadian artist, one of the defining voices of the 1970s and widely regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, appears in several images wearing a custom leather cape and wide-brimmed hat while posing for Hedi Slimane’s lens.
Both are cool, accomplished women and neither are your usual fashion faces. The element of surprise, a rare commodity in the 21st century, worked in their favor. Casting Didion, 80, and Mitchell, 71, was refreshingly progressive for a business that thrives on youth and feeds on newness. The move, while risky, championed feminist and anti-ageist ideals.
BOLD SHIFT
Last year, 93-year-old interior designer Iris Apfel helped launch & Other Stories, H&M’s sister brand, in Manhattan. This spring, she stars in an advertisement for New York-based jeweler Alexis Bittar alongside Tavi Gevinson, the 18-year-old fashion blogger-turned-Rookie editor. And there have been others: Jessica Lange, 64, was the muse of Marc Jacobs beauty in 2014, while Nars chose Charlotte Rampling, 68, and Tilda Swinton, 53, to represent its Audacious range. L’Oréal also appointed Diane Keaton, 68, Helen Mirren, 69, and Jane Fonda, 76, as brand ambassadors.
Whether these campaigns are evidence that, finally, fashion and cosmetics companies are realizing that there are customers other than 25-year-olds with trust funds, or proof that our collective culture has now adopted a “beautiful at any age” mindset, they represent a bold shift in the industry.
TIMELY FOCUS
Perhaps it, too, is luxury’s way of attempting to communicate with an older audience. Since 2011, the British department store Selfridges has inaugurated each retail year with “Bright Young Things,” an initiative that celebrates fresh talent in its London flagship. For 2015, however, the retailer has instead decided to kick off with “Bright Old Things,” which will highlight personalities such as retailer-turned-designer Nick Wooster, 55; actor-turned-painter William Forbes Hamilton, 82; and Molly Parkin, 82, former fashion editor of The Sunday Times. Each of the 14 “Bright Old Things” has designed a window display for the store’s Oxford Street frontage.
The focus on older people is timely, states The Business of Fashion. “According to statistics compiled by consulting firm AT Kearney, consumers aged 60 and older spent more than $8 trillion worldwide in 2010. What’s more, by the end of this decade that figure will have jumped to $15 trillion.”
Fashion’s increased readiness to welcome models of a certain vintage — with wrinkles, liver spots and histories to tell — is shrewd. “Decades ago, it was rarely profitable to market products to seniors, since by the time anyone had reached the age of 70 they probably had only a few years left to live,” according to The Economist. But since life expectancy is longer now, wooing these silver foxes has become lucrative. After all, people don’t give up shopping the moment they turn 50, and most often they’re the ones who could afford Céline.
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