http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2014/oct/28/-sp-helen-mirren-for-loreal-has-the-beauty-industry-finally-wised-upHelen Mirren for L’Oréal: has the beauty industry finally wised up?L’Oréal has announced its newest UK ambassador – Helen Mirren, 69. She’s the latest 50-plus woman to front a major cosmetics campaign, along with Charlotte Rampling (68), Tilda Swinton (53) and Jessica Lange (65). Has the beauty industry at last started celebrating age?
Charlotte Rampling, Tilda Swinton and Helen Mirren. Photograph: Getty Images/Wireimage/James McCauley
Alyson Walsh
Tuesday 28 October 2014 10.25 EDT
Have we reached a point where beauty is ageless, as opposed to underage? Where old is the new young? It’s just that with 69-year-old Helen Mirren as the new UK ambassador for L’Oréal and 68-year-old Charlotte Rampling representing Nars this autumn (handing the baton over to 53-year-old Tilda Swinton for spring 2015) the over-50s have taken centre stage. That shouldn’t be surprising, considering the beauty market for women in this age bracket is estimated to be about £2bn a year. But, judging by the fevered media reaction to the Mirren announcement, it still is.
Helen Mirren for L’Oreal Paris. Photograph: Simon Emmett for L'Oréal Paris Age Perfect/L'Oréal
In the 1990s, Isabella Rosselini was dropped from Lancome at 40, she has claimed, for being too old. It’s startling to think that 20 years ago, in the eyes of beauty execs, over-40 equalled invisible. Today, brands like L’Oréal have realised that you can’t market to the growing demographic of mature women without using mature women. The French cosmetics company regularly uses ambassadors of a certain age, such as Julianne Moore and Jane Fonda, while Revlon has worked with Susan Sarandon, and Marc Jacobs with Jessica Lange.
Charlotte Rampling for Nars.
Whether she’s acting, twerking or telling rowdy buskers to shut the bleep up, Helen Mirren is incredibly popular. She ruled the M&S Leading Ladies campaign, despite wearing a jaunty Per Una sailor’s cap. In L’Oréal’s press release announcing the hire, the company said it had surveyed almost 9,000 women and found the Oscar-winning star repeatedly ranked top as the woman who appealed most to consumers. Participants described Mirren as “genuine, intelligent and glamorous, with looks that seem only to improve with the passing of time”. And this down-to-earth, positive approach to ageing comes across in the 69-year-old’s comments about the L’Oréal gig: “I am not gorgeous, I never was, but I was always OK-looking and I’m keen to stay that way.”
“I hope I can inspire other women towards greater confidence by making the most of their natural good looks. We are all worth it!”
Jessica Lange for Marc Jacobs Beauty.
It may be L’Oréal’s tagline, but that last point that reverberates with a generation of women who are independent, intelligent and happy just the way they are. Women who refuse to be patronised by unrealistic images, don’t buy into the anti-ageing, younger is better ideal – and prefer to see women they can relate to. Models who are ageing naturally (or at least appear to be), who look like themselves and look good for their age. And that doesn’t equate with looking younger.
Of course there is some way to go – typically, of the 10 models posing in any L’Oréal Beauty’s group campaign, just two or three will be over 50. But the beauty industry is certainly wising up and improving, making Hollywood – where the furore about Renee Zellweger’s supposed plastic surgery continues to rumble on hysterically – look positively out of date.
In the book Your Hormone Doctor, co-author Leah Hardy neatly condenses a UN report to illustrate the spending power of this demographic. “Right now one in four women is over 50; in five years’ time, one in three will be; and in 50 years, a staggering half of all women in the world will be over 50.” More women over 50, including Mirren and all the other ambassadors, are working than ever before. That’s a very lucrative market. Selling to them is not about ignoring age or presenting it as something negative, but about celebrating an attitude – and Helen Mirren has that in spades. Long live The Queen.
Alyson Walsh writes about grown-up style for a variety of publications and blogs at
http://thatsnotmyage.blogspot.co.uk
