our own taste at Australian Fashion Week
in May, when ’90s favourite Emma Balfour
(49) closed Aje’s opening-night show.
“What is the point of having another show with the same girls
walking down the runway?” asks Tommy Ton, creative director at
NYC label Deveaux, whose presentation was among the most
talked about thanks to its quietly cool designs and characterful
casting. “We wanted to emulate reality, where you pass people
you recognise on the street.” And what are the odds of only
passing people in their late teens? If anyone can answer that, it’s
Ton, who brings his experience as a pre-eminent street-style
photographer to his new role. “It’s a lot of demographic research.
It’s one thing to be a designer, but you don’t understand what
you’re doing until you see the clothes on regular people.”
Representative casting proved challenging; agencies didn’t
have a wide selection of older models. “It was hard,” admits Ton.
So it was “regular” people we saw in Deveaux’s show: JoAni
Johnson (67), a tea-maker turned model, and Grece Ghanem
(54), a personal trainer-slash-influencer, as well as furniture andset designers. “We wanted models to bring a depth of character.
They’re reflective of who we envisage buying the clothes.”
Beauty brands, from start-ups to old guard, have got the
message, too – including L’Oréal, with ads fronted by Helen
Mirren, and Glossier, featuring grey-haired models alongside
those in their twenties. “The funny thing is, we meet people all the
time who defy [age] stereotypes,” says Givhan. “People in
fashion defy [them], but we tend to see that as outlier behaviour
rather than normal. We point to a fashionable 60-year-old
woman as if she’s a unicorn, instead of acknowledging that lots of
60-year-olds consume – or at least want to consume – fashion.”
Indeed, Ghanem didn’t think “being fashionable at 54 would
be out of the ordinary,” she says. The Montreal-based influencer
has been surprised by her success on Instagram. “I’ve always
been interested in fashion, so my daughter created an account
for me to follow influencers and street-style photographers back
in 2016.” Fast-forward to now, and Ghanem has more than
118,000 followers liking shots of her in statement runway looks.
“With age, you’re more at ease with your personal style; you
develop self-confidence. That’s why I believe that fashion should
represent the whole spectrum. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the
industry has fully embraced that yet.”
Ghanem is right. While the representation of older women on
the runway is up, models over 50 remain the least represented
cohort, relative to race, gender and body type, according to the
study by The Fashion Spot (50-and-overs accounted for 0.49 per
cent of all AW19-20 castings). And Stephanie
Seymour in a scintillating dress at the Versace
show is still making headlines. As is Wilson-
Carr in crystal slides at Simone Rocha. “That’s
probably because we’re not seeing as many
older women as we should in magazines,” says
Stella Bugbee, editor-in-chief of New York
magazine’s fashion and lifestyle off-shoot The
Cut. At ELLE, we hold our hands up to that. “I’m
optimistic that will change,” Bugbee says. “In the
past five years, we’ve seen that diversity of all kinds is mandatory
now. Age is a natural extension of those conversations, especially
as we’re seeing a celebration of older women in power in
general. And, frankly, older women have a lot of buying power.
They represent an important constituency for a lot of luxury brands.”
“Our strategy is not to think about age,” says Natalie Kingham,
fashion and buying director at MatchesFashion.com, where
customers range from 18 to 60-plus. “We think about different
women and what they might want at any time in their lives.”
Kingham’s advice? “Just be comfortable. Be adventurous about
trying new designers and new cuts. I don’t think age limits
how stylish you can be.”
Let’s hope we grow used to seeing more age diversity, as well
as all ethnicities, genders and body types, across the board in
fashion. “Diversity of representation changes the definition of grace.
It revolutionises the industry,” says Ghanem. Vive la révolution. E“WE WANTED
MODELS
to BRING
a DEPTH of
CHARACTER”RUNWAY REPORT
51
Words: Sara McAlpine. Photography: Getty Images; Jason Lloyd-Evans
HellessySimone Rocha