In the minds of the average person, when the word "fashion" is used, the image of a long-legged thin model on the catwalk or an athletic young man who is under twenty years old will surely appear. For too long a special type of beauty has been cultivated, the only one acceptable in haute couture. There was no place for old age or maturity in this world. Until recently, it was so. But democracy even made its way into the closed world of fashion and non-standard models began to appear more and more often on the pages of gloss, among which there are also elderly people. What is the reason for this fad - do young and handsome youths no longer attract potential buyers. There is no definite answer here. The beauty of age is the calmness of style, which many eminent designers strive for. And it is age-old models who manage to show this modest charm to the fullest.
- The recent appearance of the famous 67-year-old dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov in a commercial for the American clothing brand rag & bone was another confirmation of a clearly emerging trend. The ballet legend presented the new collection of the American brand in the company of the young dancer Lil Buck. According to Markus Wainwright, one of the brand's designers, the choice is easy to explain: there is a generational continuity, because many people compare the young dancer with a Russian-American ballet star.
- Even before everyone started talking about a clearly emerging trend in world fashion, the model Charles Schumann already shone with might and main gray hair in advertising campaigns Baldessarini. The charm of the elderly model became the hallmark of the Fashion House, although in his youth Schumann never dreamed of a modeling career. A political scientist and journalist by training, Schumann became a European celebrity as a bartender and chef. Schumann found himself in the modeling business, having exchanged his sixties: on the street, recruit Yoshi Yamamoto approached him and invited him to a casting, after which Charles went to the catwalk in Yamamoto shirts and Comme des Garçons jackets. In 1996, he became the face of Baldessarini and to this day advertises the brand's perfumery.
- For the fall-winter 2015 advertising campaign, Prada invited a 44-year-old actor as a model Ethan Hawke, who became the protagonist of the brand's fashion shootings. For Prada, which is notable for its conservatism in the selection of models, such a step speaks volumes, in particular, a serious shift in world beauty standards.
- The Instagram blog of New Yorker Christina Belshaire has become a sensation in the global fashion community. The FashionGrandpas project emerged from street shots of the stylish residents of Madison Avenue and has grown into a global blog. It turned out that looking at fashionably dressed elderly people is interesting for everyone, as evidenced by the growing number of subscribers. The author prefers people over 65 years old who, in their original outfits, will give odds to many young fashionistas
- The domestic project "Oldushka" also exploits the theme of fashionable grandparents on the streets of Russian cities. Blog author Igor Gavar This is how he says about his brainchild: “For a long time, the concept of beauty was associated exclusively with the cult of youth, the stereotype opposing beauty and old age has firmly settled in the public consciousness. The Oldushka project is an attempt to dispel this stereotype, expand our understanding of age, and create an image of an attractive elderly person. The blog explores the peculiarities of national color, the relationship between age and style of older people living in Russia. Consciously or accidentally, they create original images, relying on sensations, intuition and experience of the past. This series is a collective portrait of our elderly compatriots who have retained their sense of style despite the circumstances and the system of ideas about old age. This generation has long lived in conditions of deficit and a political regime that suppresses any manifestation of individuality. And now, in modern Russia, many pensioners live in conditions incommensurate with the standard of a normal life. However, neither these circumstances, nor the strength of stereotypes associated with age, are able to overcome the desire of people to look beautiful."
