The Times Magazine 21astonishingly beautiful and always will be.
“I get this a lot,” Porizkova responds. “ ‘It’s
easy to age when you look like you.’ OK, that’s
fair. I was once celebrated for how I looked.
But age is a great equaliser and we are all on
the same trajectory – downhill! Whether you
start higher up or not, we all decline. The fact
is, I am as invisible as any other 56-year-old
woman walking into a party.”
There are, at least, more women over 50
at the party than there used to be. In the past
month, the Sex and the City reboot, And Just
Like That..., put three of them on our screens
at prime time: Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin
Davis are the same age as Porizkova; Cynthia
Nixon is 55. The new season Saint Laurent
campaign unveiled around the same time stars
a 65-year-old Jerry Hall, still smouldering
almost 50 years after her first appearance on
the French label’s catwalk. January’s issue of
British Vogue features on its cover the 57-year-
old American model Kristen McMenamy,
whose long silver hair and grungy-goth style
have earned her a new fanbase among Gen Z.
On the spring 2021 catwalks (mainly videos
or films, thanks to the pandemic), there were
32 appearances by older models.
Yvette Cooper, 52, is back on the opposition
front bench. At the BBC, Sophie Raworth is 53
and Fiona Bruce 57. Strictly’s Shirley Ballas
is 61, and the Toda y programme’s Martha
Kearney is 64. Tess Daly is 52, and so is
Jennifer Aniston; Monica Bellucci is 57. Harriet
Walter (71) in Succession, Kristin Scott Thomas
(61) in Fleabag, Frances McDormand (64) in
Nomadland: later life now looks very different
from when Kathy Staff began playing Nora
Batty in Last of the Summer Wine at 45.
“There are more older women in the
public space,” agrees the psychotherapist and
author Susie Orbach, 75. “That has become a
prerequisite, where we used to be able to ignore
them. But sex is still the sell – our voices are
there but we are still invisible physically.”
The newest crop of 50-year-olds were
acid house ravers and indie shoegazers.
Chances are you’ll find more fiftysomethings
at Glastonbury than at Glyndebourne these
days. Yet speak to these woman, dressed in
Nike Airs, Lululemon, North Face jackets and
leopard-print jumpsuits, and they will tell you
of their social feeds serving them adverts for
funeral plans, dementia games, slippers and
comfy knickers.
“The advertising industry can be a beaconof hope on a good day,” says Vicki Maguire,
57 and the first female chief creative officer at
the advertising agency Havas London. “On a
bad day, it perpetuates hackneyed stereotypes.
[Advertising was] quick to compensate on race,
but age has crept up on us.”
“Fashion rushes towards the next untapped
source of income: the young,” says the fashion
commentator and activist Caryn Franklin, 62,
who was one of the first to campaign for
greater diversity of age, size and race in the
industry with All Walks Beyond the Catwalk
in 2009. “It’s harder to exploit older women
who are clear about who they are. Older
consumers require a more nuanced approach- we’ve been around the block.”
There are more people in the UK aged
50-54 than there are under four, and more
than half of them are female. In 2019, 20 per
cent of the UK population was over 65, and
the number of people in this bracket has
increased by 17 per cent in 20 years. In the
same time, the rest of the population rose only
seven per cent. The pattern is here to stay: our
birth rate isn’t high enough to counter the
statistic-skewing effect of greater longevity.
Not only that, wealth has pooled at the top
of the age spectrum. Spending by those over
65 has risen by 75 per cent since the turn of
the millennium, compared with a 16 per cent
fall among those under 50. If high-street shops
were made more accessible, the pensioner
pound could add an extra £47 billion to the
economy by 2040, by when 63p of every £1
will be spent by an older adult. Yet this end of
the market is discerning rather than captive,
as it has traditionally been perceived.
“In the developed and developing world,
people are living longer, better lives with
more active years,” says psychologist Nancy
Pachana. “Many older people say they have
finally come to understand their true selves,
yet we warehouse them in nursing homes,
expect them to get up and dressed at the same
time, sit in the same room and watch the same
TV shows. In the coming decades, people - particularly women – are going to rebel.”
Porizkova has come up with her own
hashtag (#betweenjloandbettywhite) for the
under-served bracket she finds herself in, J.Lo
being 52 and the former Golden Girls actress
Betty White 99. “I want to have someone to
look up to and I don’t find a whole lot.”
Last month, she starred in the beauty
brand Laura Geller’s latest ad. She appears on
camera lounging by a pool in a string bikini,
running an office in a tight pencil skirt,
outstripping younger women at a step class.
“Let’s just say it: I’m getting older,” she
declares in the film, before launching into a
stream of affirmations: older is sexy, older is
experienced, older is powerful. She finishes
with a hair flick: “I’m the best I’ve ever been.”
Porizkova has been through plenty to
‘DO I FEEL SEXIER?
OH MY GOD, YES. BUT
I AM NOT A FLUTTERY,
VULNERABLE CREATURE’
Jerry Hall, 65, in the
new Saint Laurent
advertising campaign
Actress Monica Bellucci, 57Kristen McMenamy, 57, on the cover of January’s VogueThe 50+ STARS