“Age has become something brands seem genuinely proud to highlight,” Ms. Van Houtte said.
Even beyond the runway, a movement has burgeoned in which fashion, or fashion-adjacent, people choose to emphasize, rather than erase, their age. The former supermodel and current Estée Lauder ambassador Paulina Porizkova, 61, has been spearheading the discussion on Instagram, where she reveals her laugh lines and age-related weight gain in makeup-less photos and underwear videos to her 1.4 million followers.
Joining her is Ms. Buck, who posted a close-up bathroom mirror selfie before the most recent Celine show, captioned, in part, “the face I never thought I would have.” The shot, she said, inspired more positive feedback than pretty much anything else she has done. And then there is the recent discussion of menopause and perimenopause that has supercharged a new segment of the beauty market and that is led by women like Ms. Watts, Halle Berry and Gwyneth Paltrow.
It’s a striking shift in an industry that has long been famous for fetishizing youth. And it stands out in a world where viewers are inundated with images in which every sign of age — every wrinkle, hollow, age spot — has been filled in, tightened, filtered, lifted or otherwise erased. Speculating on the work someone has had done, even someone in her early 30s, has become a parlor game everyone can play, and artificial intelligence has made constant modification and reinvention a part of our visual diet.
There’s a backlash brewing to the airbrushed age.
Courting the Silver Dollar
“There’s a practical reality agencies and the industry have to face: that older women have the purchasing power to buy the stuff being presented, and they have a desire to see themselves and their lived experiences in these spaces,” said Romae Gordon, a 52-year-old former model who returned to the catwalk a year ago.
Ms. Gordon began modeling as a teenager in Jamaica in the early 1990s. She found some success, but her career never really took off, and she stopped after only a few years to finish college and then manage a modeling agency. A year ago, after her partner died, a friend convinced her to step in front of the camera again.
In September, she was booked for Dario Vitale’s first (and only) Versace show, and in January, she walked the Chanel couture runway, followed by the Chanel ready-to-wear show. Now, she said, she is having her best season ever. And she isn’t alone.
