Fashion’s golden years

Jocelyn K Glei

• Last Updated: January 04. 2009 8:30AM UAE / January 4. 2009 4:30AM GMT

A model sporting an elegant and classic look walks the catwalk at the spring/summer 2009 Luella show during London Fashion Week. Karl Prouse / Catwalking / Getty Images

From the catwalks of London, New York and Paris to the covers of glossy style magazines, fronting the fashion plates has long been the province of dewy-skinned youths. Yet, during the past few seasons as the financial crisis hangs ever-heavier over our heads like a sullen cloud, the fashion industry seems to be struggling for new ways to find a silver lining – or, at least, to convince consumers that there is one.

Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, and in fashion that just might mean giving a little face time to the grown-ups. The middle aged have been popping up on the high-fashion scene – and not just at the cash registers. From strategic catwalk appearances to luxury ad campaigns to the streets of major metropolises, mature male and female models and style icons are gaining new visibility.

It all seems to have started with a micro-trend that has come to be known as “granny-chic”. In late 2007 and early 2008, twentysomething women – likely doing their shopping vintage-style and on the cheap – started emerging on the streets of London and New York clad in crocheted winter caps, oversized glasses of the Golden Girls variety, coats with covered buttons, round-collared shirts (buttoned all the way up), chunky costume jewellery and orthopaedic-inspired shoes. For a quick mental image, picture the elegant Helen Mirren dowdied down in her Oscar-winning performance for The Queen.

The street style seemed to reach its zenith when Ari Cohen, a former manager of the Seattle, Washington, menswear outlet Blackbird, launched Advanced Style, a street-style photoblog that was quickly dubbed “The Sartorialist, But With Elderly People,” by New York Magazine.

Running under the tagline “proof from the wizened and silver-haired set that personal style advances with age”, the website is solely devoted to capturing the style of fashion-savvy senior citizens.

When asked what he finds so inspirational about the style of the more mature, Cohen replies, “I think it’s the confidence with which older people present themselves. There are a lot of traditional style elements mixed in with new trends. Older people have had time to curate their looks and gather different accessories over the years. I appreciate everything from perfectly mismatched outfits to the chic and classy.”

Cohen’s magpie eye is evident in the wide-ranging subjects singled out on the website, where images range from an elderly lady rocking a particularly winning housecoat, to the revered journalist and style icon Gay Talese looking ever dapper, to an imported photo essay on well-aged Congolese sapeurs (French slang for those who “dress with class”). Whether or not you agree with Advanced Style’s broadly appreciative aesthetic, it’s clear that the project has struck a chord, eliciting frequent reader submissions and garnering notice from a slew of online style publications, including the cutting-edge hipster rag The Fader. Meanwhile, a recent shout-out on the gossipy women’s blog Jezebel uncorked a series of comments from young 20-somethings, who spoke reverently of their grandmothers’ impeccable style.

As the street-style photographer Phil Oh, the founder of StreetPeeper.com, notes, the granny look is still going strong, “especially in cities like London and Melbourne, where there are a lot of young art kids without a lot of money, and where vintage shopping is prevalent”.

Not surprisingly, granny chic quickly found its way to the catwalk, as more than a few labels strutted gamines with a geriatric twist for their fall 2008 collections. A number of womenswear shows included accents such as teased out buns, coils of pearls, oversized metallic accessories, over-the-hip cardigans, dark tights and dull-hued, heavy-soled shoes.

At London Fashion Week in February, Antoni & Alison preceded their fall presentation with a tea party, while the show itself seemed almost like a send-up of the Queen of England, complete with models decked out in old-lady style headscarves tied under the chin. At Dolce & Gabbana, scarves were knotted around the neck and paired with calf-length wool skirts and lace-up, wooden-soled bootees. The designer Chris Benz, meanwhile, cited “older French women” as an inspiration for his fall collection, telling Style.com, “I love the idea of a funny old woman pulling wrinkled clothes from 50 years ago out of a suitcase.”

During the summer, the Paris menswear shows got in on the elderly action as well when a cadre of designers, including Yohji Yamamoto, Anne Demeulemeester and Etro sprinkled their catwalk presentations with 60-plus male models. For its collection featuring a riot of pyjama-style silk fabrics, Etro treated young and old alike on the catwalk, kitting all of its male models out in barely buttoned patterned shirts billowing open to the mid torso.

Demeulemeester’s show, which the International Herald Tribune fashion editor Suzy Menkes cited as being about “the art of growing older”, played out more chronologically. Younger models walked the catwalk in styles that felt Edwardian with a punk rock edge – broadbrimmed hats and cravats topped off long and lean black jackets that were layered over bold polka-dotted vests and paired with black and beige-striped pants rolled to just below the knee. Next, a diverse group of older men walked the catwalk in similar white-and beige combos, with longer trousers and an overall more dignified feel. Whereas the younger men’s ensembles felt edgy and intellectual, those sported by the more senior models felt effortless and wearable.

Over at Yohji Yamamoto, the inspiration for using older models was less overt. Backstage, the designer said of his collection, “The world is becoming worse and worse. My message is: let’s be happy.” The outcome, again, was a very realistic chic. Yamamoto’s older models looked elegant and easy, with fedoras and driving caps topping off simple suits in grey, black and cream, with high-waisted trousers cuffed at the hem. As if to demonstrate the look in situ, one older model walked the catwalk with a bottle of milk and a rolled-up newspaper tucked under one arm. When the 65-year-old Yamamoto came out for a bow, he fit right in.

While Demeulemeester’s and Yamamoto’s collections played like a paean to the grace, confidence and wisdom of old age, the decision to use older models can also be read as a shrewd marketing move in times of decreased spending. As Advanced Style’s Cohen remarks, “I think that the marketers are realising that older people are the ones who have the money to spend on high-end merchandise. I’d like to think it was because of a growing appreciation of the style and wisdom that comes with age, but I know it’s also a product of commercialism and economics.”

At the spring/summer 2009 womenswear shows this fall, grandma was still lurking on the catwalk, albeit in a more “eccentric” incarnation, mixing bright colours and accessories with abandon. The look was most notable at Luella Bartley’s show in London, which trotted out tiny hats with veils, short tweed jackets garnished with garish brooches, skeins of pearls, bow-tied blouses, and frocks and skirts in tiny floral prints sprouting wavelets of pleats and mini-ruffles – all in a predominantly lavender and tangerine colour palette.

Cacharel’s spring collection, which boasted a strongly vintage vibe, went in for floral prints, too, with some loose, flowing, almost mumu-like dresses topped off with matching headscarves, as well as other retirement-ready accents like the odd tam o’shanter paired with oversized sunglasses. Meanwhile, Lanvin introduced a new eyewear collection of costume jewellery-encrusted sunglasses that look like something the present-day Elizabeth Taylor might wear.

While a few menswear designers might dare to include older men in their shows, on the women’s side, “It’s more the aesthetic of older women that’s particularly interesting to designers,” says Robert Cordero, the editor of the global style publication JC Report. “In an economic downturn, designers need to come up with products that will make people buy, and older women, particularly eccentric grannies, have a devil-may-care attitude about fashion that inspires designers.”

Aside from designers looking to their elders for inspiration or labels working to motivate spending from an older demographic, another reason for the increased visibility of more mature men and women may be at work. In a Time Magazine article on recession chic published earlier this year, Narciso Rodriguez – the designer that Michelle Obama chose to wear on election night – commented, “When times get tough, people want things that are real and lasting.”

Indeed, “effortless” and “timeless” seem to be the new watchwords of recession-time fashion, and recent ad campaigns, particularly those from luxury brands, are channelling this notion through the selective use of more mature models. Perhaps the most noteworthy among them has been Louis Vuitton’s ongoing “core values” campaign shot by the photographer Annie Leibovitz, which showcases “personalities of extraordinary stature” alongside classic pieces from the renowned 150-year-old luggage maker. Though the campaign has featured younger icons such as Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi, it has primarily focused on iconic, 60-plus figures.

The campaign launched in September of 2007, featuring ads with the former Soviet Union leader and the unlikely style icon Mikhail Gorbachev at age 76 and the legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve, then 64. In April, the campaign featured the 64-year-old Rolling Stones rocker Keith Richards in all of his weather-beaten glory, and the latest instalment, released in October, showcases the original 007, Sean Connery, sitting dockside in the Bahamas with Vuitton’s trusty Keepall bag and looking as sexy as ever at age 78. The most recent in the series, of course, features that most fabulous of fiftysomethings, Madonna.

In another nod to the tried and true, the original “big six” supermodels, now in their late 30s and early 40s, have been popping up in high-profile fashion ad campaigns. For its fall 2008 campaign, Prada traded the 23-year-old Sasha Pivovarova for a 43-years-gorgeous Linda Evangalista; Naomi Campbell, 38, appeared in YSL’s fall campaign; Christy Turlington, 39, posed for Escada, and Cindy Crawford re-emerged in an editorial spread for French Vogue. Meanwhile, Claudia Schiffer, who starred in Chanel’s fall adverts, will be the face of spring campaigns for YSL, Dolce & Gabbana and Salvatore Ferragamo. As the blog Stylelist.com said in a recent post about an elegant Schiffer clad in Louis Vuitton, “Here is a woman who is refined, age appropriate, yet still exudes a very fresh confidence.”

Meanwhile, the actresses-turned-budding fashion mavens Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen announced that Lauren Hutton, who has worked with them previously, will be the face of their next campaign for their clothing line, The Row. In their brand-new book, Influence, the 22-year-old twins also cite Hutton as one of their “muses”, along with Anna Wintour and John Galliano. When asked about Hutton’s enduring appeal, Mary Kate has said, “She’s just a wise woman and she’s a traveller and she’s obviously a style icon.”