Fashion Grows Up

If there's one thing that will change the fashion industry's obsession with youth, it's money. I'm not talking bungs and bribes - Cash For Wrinkles, anyone? Or the super-rich. Really, who cares if Daphne Guinness would rather binge on couture than eat? No. It's officially time for designers and retailers to wake up and smell the grey pound. All Walks Beyond The Catwalk, whose aim is to increase diversity in fashion and prove that 'real beauty is good for business,' have just told me about some research by Ben Barry a PhD student at Judge Business School, Cambridge University, that supports their philosophy.

'In my research, featuring 300 women in Canada, the US and UK, equally segmented between 14-65 years of age, over 90% of women between 40-65 increased purchase intentions when the advertisement featured models reflecting their age and size,' reports Barry. 'Women over 40 possess more overall spending power than any other age group, and they spend more on women's apparel than younger market segments. Moreover research has demonstrated that ageing does not reduce fashion interest among individuals.'


Women over forty want clothes that fit, flatter and look fashionable. And we want to see them on older models. Time for change, don't you think?


PS Why stop at 65? The fabulous New Yorkers snapped by Ari Seth Cohen for Advanced Style still care about fashion - and Alexis Bittar has been using 67-year-old Lauren Hutton in his ads this year.




All Walks Beyond The Catwalk.

Glad to be grey

Whilst Jean Paul Gaultier celebrated ageless style by sending models down his A/W 2011 catwalk with gorgeous grey beehive wigs, That's Not My Age prefers the real thing. Click here to see my grey streak - and er, super model Kristen McMenamy looking fabulous sans dye-job. So it's good to see that lifestyle brand Toast, who show their menswear collection on models of all ages, are now using older, grey-haired women too - that's the lovely Daphne Selfe above. Hooray!







'O.A.P/A.O.K: Grab your bus pass - the older lady inspires,' said Elle Collections magazine about Gaultier's grown-up models:













Yesterday market research company Mintel tweeted, 'Just one in seven European women aged over-55 consider their hair to be their best feature. Could more can be done to target this group?'



I'm trying to find out some more about this statistic - but in the meantime, what do you think?





Catwalk photos: style.com

The Big Issue

That's Not My Age strongly believes that you don't have to have youth to have style. Which you've probably gathered already, as I spend my mid-life banging on about individuality in the over-forties. I always try to use inspirational imagery, friendly language and give realistic advice. My place in the blogosphere may be the size of a newly-formed follicle on Wayne Rooney's pate, but one small step for womankind and all that. Over at Graduate Fashion Week yesterday, age, race and size were on the agenda as the very first educational Centre for Diversity was launched by the Minister for Equalities, Lynne Featherstone. Hooray! This latest project from All Walks Beyond The Catwalk reaches designers at the start of their careers and encourages them to embrace diversity by designing for ordinary bodies rather than the usual size 8 mannequins or skinny young models.



All Walks was founded back in 2009 by fashion commentator Caryn Franklin, PR expert Debra Bourne and model Erin O'Connor. The team that inspired knitwear designer Mark Fast to use size 12-14 catwalk models (causing the stylist to walk out and the spring 2010 collection to sell out) and worked with Rankin on the Snapped exhibition, at the National Portrait Gallery earlier this year, has created the Centre for Diversity in conjunction with the fashion department at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA). In order to 'Celebrate & Educate,' second year students have been paired up with 'icons,' or real women in a range of different ages, sizes and shapes. Course leader, Mal Burkinshaw gave a heartfelt talk on how the experience had deeply affected the students, how once they got to know their real-life models he saw behaviour and attitudes change. Realising that the people they were designing for had needs and feelings, the ECA students gradually became 'emotionally considerate' and by the time it came to the catwalk show, were treating their icons like family.

More colleges are expected to follow, and Anne Chaisty from the Arts University College Bournemouth and Philip Clarke at Southampton Solent University have already incorporated body shape projects into the curriculum.



After today's presentation, I had a very quick chat with Caryn Franklin, and asked her how ageism in fashion could be properly addressed, when really we still only see Twiggy and a couple of other older models in the media:

'Research from Cambridge University PhD student, Ben Berry - who monitors female consumer responses to fashion - says that when women see adverts with models who are similar to themselves, they buy. So accountants and CEOs for the major retailers will take notice because by doing this they'll improve their profits and improve customer wellbeing at the same time. It's a win-win situation.'



And what about the latest cover of Italian Vogue isn't showing plus size models in their underwear a bit of a cop-out?

'It's great as long as it's not tokenism - though obviously if the models aren't wearing clothes, maybe there weren't any samples available?! The magazine needs to tell designers that they want to run another cover in three months time, and that they need to make some larger size samples. That's what we do.'


Franca Sozzani, take note.








What are your thoughts on diversity in the fashion industry?

Photos from All Walks and How to Look Good