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| Joni Mitchell for Saint Laurent |
Wrinkles.
The word itself would make a room full of flawless young models shiver. Or even a room full of regular men and women for that matter.
Wrinkles. The first thought coming through one's mind is probably an honest "ew". They not only indicate that our skin cells are degrading and bowing under the weight of years of pollution, facial expressions and other elements, but they also are the first signs of getting older we notice in the mirror. One day we wake up in the morning and there it is. In the corner of our eye, underlining the smiling expression, sagging our faces, it's starring us in the face : a wrinkle, and often more menacing to surface. When all magazines covers and spreads promote baby skin and firm-faced models, the fashion industry seems to have caught on a new trend to feature older women in fashion campaigns. While young and glowing still seems to be a likely combination in your average Vogue or Elle, you may stumble upon a well-preserved and all the same glowing woman illuminating a fashion spread.
By the time you are fifty today, as a woman, or a man, you still have fireworks up your sleeve, and often wrinkles and white hair are that little thing that is oh-so-not advertised in the beauty world. The 2010s seem to have brought a new take on aging women, with ads featuring older women such as Joni Mitchell for Saint Laurent (as seen above), as well as Jacquie 'Tajah' Murdoch, 82 years old, for Lanvin (as part of a real-people campaign, orchestrated by Lanvin's creative director, Alber Elbaz - who I actually met during the latest Jeanne Lanvin exhibit in Paris), Joan Didion, 80 years old, for Céline, but also random older women for Dolce & Gabbana. Is 2015 the year we are going to consider old beautiful? Not that there isn't a niche discourse around the art of getting old, but the overall language around old age is fairly negative.
Still, thousands of women reach out to Botox and plastic surgery to retrieve a younger face and to get rid of old age signs. An article in The Guardian by Eva Wiseman forecasts that by 2018, the global market for Botox will reach 2.0 billion dollars. In another article, Eva Wiseman speaks of the year-zero face to characterize the ageless face some women decide to order from their plastic surgeon. We've all seen the shiny, taut faces roaming through metropolises around the world, especially near the Louboutin stores, but also at the Oscars, because, hey, if beauty notions have to start anywhere, it's often in Hollywood. Botoxed faces are often paired with overly plumped lips and ridiculously fake tans, but they can also be quite discrete. One subtle needle touch-up here and there. Overall, even if the war against wrinkles and signs of old age is only about throwing anti-aging serums and creams for the average woman, it remains that aging is no party. Saggy skin, spots, wrinkles, greying hair, and the lot make for a lousy equation, but is there any way we can consider old age beautiful? Is there an art of wrinkling? And most importantly, can we age beautifully without doing anything, or is aging necessarily linked with taking the quest for beauty to another level. Here is to hoping that wrinkling will be in style by the time I'm all creased.
Still, thousands of women reach out to Botox and plastic surgery to retrieve a younger face and to get rid of old age signs. An article in The Guardian by Eva Wiseman forecasts that by 2018, the global market for Botox will reach 2.0 billion dollars. In another article, Eva Wiseman speaks of the year-zero face to characterize the ageless face some women decide to order from their plastic surgeon. We've all seen the shiny, taut faces roaming through metropolises around the world, especially near the Louboutin stores, but also at the Oscars, because, hey, if beauty notions have to start anywhere, it's often in Hollywood. Botoxed faces are often paired with overly plumped lips and ridiculously fake tans, but they can also be quite discrete. One subtle needle touch-up here and there. Overall, even if the war against wrinkles and signs of old age is only about throwing anti-aging serums and creams for the average woman, it remains that aging is no party. Saggy skin, spots, wrinkles, greying hair, and the lot make for a lousy equation, but is there any way we can consider old age beautiful? Is there an art of wrinkling? And most importantly, can we age beautifully without doing anything, or is aging necessarily linked with taking the quest for beauty to another level. Here is to hoping that wrinkling will be in style by the time I'm all creased.
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