One of the most exciting sights on the fall 2024 runways were the cadre of grown-ass
Women stomping and slinking their way in slouchy suits, barely there dresses, and everything in between. In
New York City, Batsheva Hay cast her show exclusively with women over 40 (and even modeled by legendary NYC designer Victoria Bartlett); and in Paris, ’s Olivier Rousteing cast a show with a gorgeous mix of models of different ages, in a show dedicated to his mother. But for a few seasons now, designers have been incorporating women older than the average model in her late teens or early 20s, which more accurately reflect their actual real-life customer. Some of them were , and others have only now experienced a boom in their careers. If
fashion is supposed to be aspirational, and aging is an inevitable part of life, then these are women we can trust to show us the way. We reached out to four models who walked many of the shows this season to tells us what it feels like to be setting trends and changing paradigms in their own words. Bethany Nagy, 53, at Balmain and Saint Laurent I started modeling in 1995 when I was 25, I was already at retirement age when I started. I was attending graduate school at the University of
Texas at Austin, in the School of Architecture, at that point in time, and this crazy opportunity came up in Dallas, because that was the connection that I had. Four months in, I was doing Neiman Marcus’ “The Book,” and other work. I went to
Paris and lived in Europe for a year, and it just took off from there. I did my first big showroom for Christian Dior, and it was the last season of [Gianfranco] Ferré. I had just landed in Paris, I think there were five of us doing it, and I was green and new. I had no idea who he [Ferré] was. I was told I had to lie about my age when I started, especially when I went to Europe, so from 25 I turned 19. It was a Benjamin Button-type of rewind. At that point they said I had two good years, that I was already too old. But it just kept going. I grew into an industry where most women retired at around 25. It was very rare. If you went into an agency at that point in time, you didn’t see a lot of boards that had older models or anyone over 30 unless you were a supermodel. I just kind of rode this wave until all of a sudden people were like . And now it’s turned into, , I started working with in 2021. Fall of 2021 is when I did my first show with them, and I have done four shows and three campaigns with them now. Anthony [Vaccarello] is such an amazing human being, and just so kind. He recently had Diana Ross in a campaign—even from the outside you can tell he embraces that image for the world, older women, younger women, it’s everybody, and I felt very fortunate to be a part of it. I thought I was retired prior to COVID-19. It was around 2017 when I told myself I just didn’t want to fight for scraps. There’s too much physical maintenance that goes with this
Job to be fighting to do a commercial with me and my fake husband taking a blue pill. I don’t want to do Botox commercials. That’s just not who I am. After COVID, my first big thing was a Maybelline commercial, and from that, and it came out of nowhere, this wave started. I was getting work, and seeing some of my fellow models who I’ve worked with forever getting these amazing jobs, [too]. We’ve been at this for a long time, so there’s been an embrace, a very welcome embrace. My agencies have provided a rock solid foundation of support and worked incredibly hard to push this aspect of age inclusivity in the industry and I owe everything to them. I did Balmain this season with Olivier Rousteing. The comment that was made by the head of casting was basically that when they were doing the casting for the younger models, if they’re new to it, they don’t know as many people, so it’s a little quiet in the waiting room. But when they were casting the older models we were just blah, blah, blah, chirping away and hugging each other and complimenting each other on each other’s work and asking about their kids and lives. That’s the beautiful thing about this stage, having that camaraderie with people you have seen or witnessed throughout your own career or have been
Friends with over the years. Still, the younger models are very encouraging and supportive, and they love it and question why it hasn’t been like this before. It’s a nice place to be in the world. It’s really been a lot of fun. I think when you’ve already enjoyed a pretty full career, to come back to it in this way—I mean there’s always a bit of stress and pressure, you still have to perform, but you get to enjoy it in a different way. From the conversations I’ve had with my fellow “wise” models, it’s that when you have a led a longer life it’s different than when you’re just building a career as opposed to having already built one. You get to enjoy it a little bit more, and have a different perspective on it. Bonnie Morrison, 48, at Fforme I was a PR person for a long time, so I’ve spent a lot of time backstage. I had never walked a show before—not a charity fashion show, a high school fashion show or even a crit. Nothing. The closest I ever came to was when I worked with Pierre Rougier; Dries Van Noten was my account, and his shows were often 60 or 70 exits, so the night before we would always have to help figure out the pacing for the models. I wouldn’t say it was a dream I didn’t know I had, but it a dream and I definitely kind of dusted it off after almost a quarter century. Max [Ortega, a contributing fashion editor and stylist who works on ’s runway shows] texted me saying ‘I have a sort of funny question to ask you’. And I thought it he was going to ask me to let someone in his house—because we live close to each other, like I run into him at the grocery store all the time—so I called him and he told me he was working on Fforme and that he was working with Rachel Chandler [the casting director], and I made a joke like ‘Oh Rachel’s casting the show? It’s going to be a real , because I’ve known Rachel for years, and her casting is so specific always—it’s always really interesting-looking people. And then he was like, ‘Well I don’t know if you’re going to like what I’m about to ask you, but we thought maybe you could walk in the show’. (Laughs) Believe it or not I said ‘Max, I’m going to have to let you know’, because the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve realized I have many, many, many introverted tendencies. But then I gave myself time to think about it and I was like, What’s the worst that can happen? Sure I could fall, but I wasn’t thinking that far in advance. And it’s not like this is and they’re gonna drop a bucket of pig’s blood on my head. I felt like I knew enough to expect, that I could push myself beyond my comfort zone and I was going to be fine. I felt very well taken care of for the whole process—everyone was so nice, especially Paul [Helbers, Fforme’s creative director]—they were all so professional and the assistants were so fun. And the great thing about Paul’s clothes is that those are clothes that I would actually wear. The day of the show, I couldn't believe how relaxed it was backstage. It was no-hair hair, no-makeup makeup, and then it was like ‘ok you’re done, put on your clothes and you can go out there’. There were girls—well, women—of all ages and if some of them knew that I was as old as their moms—or maybe their younger aunts—they weren't shady about it. (Laughs) Afterwards they were like,‘What are you doing after?’ and meanwhile I was ready to go home and go to sleep. Before the show Paul gave us a little talk, but it was more about how we had to be conscious of the way the runway was configured. I wasn’t super scared about going out because it wasn’t like an Ossie Clark or Todd Oldham or even Steven Burrows show where the girls had big personalities, and they’re dancing on the runway, and there’s a real story and you need to perform. I knew I had to maintain my focus; I needed to keep my eyes on the girl in front of me because if not then the whole thing could be a disaster. I was wearing flat shoes and sunglasses, and that made things easier so I wasn’t worried about falling or anything. But what was very funny is I would see friends out of the corner of my eye but I couldn’t really acknowledge them. Someone else was like ‘I was waving, did you see me?’ and I had to be like, ‘Sorry guys, no. I was working’. Stephanie Cavalli, 47, at Miu Miu There are so many things that are changing, and I feel very lucky to be my age right now. If I was my age 20 years ago, I probably would’ve stopped a while back, so I feel very lucky. I started modeling when I was 21 or 22. I was in Milan at the time—I’m Italian—but the business was very different. [Back then] I was told that I was already too old to be a model. But I kept working until about 39 or 40 and then stopped. I was too young to be old and too young to be old, so I took a break for about four years. When I started back I noticed all the differences and how much better it is to be an model than a younger model, which still shocks me to this day. The market has changed in the sense that when I was in my twenties, I used to work with more commercial clients and catalogs. Once I started again—and maybe because I stopped coloring my hair and wasn’t trying to be part of the whole [young] thing like I was before—it changed entirely. My line of work now… I work for higher fashion clients and get better bookings. So that’s one way in which it’s different. It’s also that clients and everybody in the business, agents included, treat older models with, let’s say, a bit more respect. They realize that we have our own lives, and sometimes another business or job to take care of, and kids and families. There is more acknowledgment of the humanity of a model, something that was completely left behind before. When I was younger, models were merely images and their opinion or what they had to say of their lives didn’t really matter. So if you needed to leave within two or three hours to go to the airport for a job you had to do it, you were supposed to do it. That has changed, and it makes me feel so much better. For the two shows I’ve done, I was fortunate enough that I didn’t have to do a casting. Ashley Brokaw [a casting director] contacted my agency because they were interested in me. This was back in September. I wasn’t going to be able to do it, but we found a way, and I love to say that they really tried to get me to go to Paris. Eventually I did go, and this past March I did my second show and it’s been an incredibly amazing experience both times. Everybody was really relaxed in the sense that there were no weird competitions or anything like that among models. It was hectic because we had to get the job done, but it was all organized and fun. I have to say that the most surprising part was how nice everybody is, and how nice Miuccia Prada really is. I knew she was nice because I had read interviews and read a little bit about her, but it was very interesting to see it in person. She has a very human look in her eyes that puts you at ease. It doesn’t feel like you’re being scrutinized, it feels like you’re part of the whole project. She had a smile for everybody. I have to confess, being a part of this is something that makes me very proud. Right now everybody is talking about ageism, and age is a big question mark, especially in a woman’s head. How to face it, how to be accepting of it. This is a push towards aging gracefully, because all of the models that were over 40 were different. None of them had their hair dyed, for example, it was so refreshing. It’s a step towards accepting oneself and towards accepting beauty in everything. Aging is a process, it’s up to us to make it beautiful. Kina Vandevelde at Marine Serre For me it’s kind of weird, this question of ‘How do you feel about doing that at a certain age?’ I feel super good about my age and I feel young. Some kids I work with are 17 or 20 and they seem much older than some women in their 60s; it’s all about how you feel inside, what you value, and what you want to express. I don’t like to speak so much about my exact age, I like to keep a kind of mystery around it; I can tell you that I’m in my forties. I also do a lot of things—[equine therapy, maintaining residences in Costa Rica]—so that’s why I think age is so not essential, but for some reason people are still into this blockage of [age], weight, skin color skin—though it is still much better than when I began modeling. I love to be part of Marine Serre and Ester Manas’s shows because they push about inclusivity. It’s great to be part of this new era where people are more and more conscious about [representation]. I wish people could be more like Yves Saint Laurent or Balmain that really understood the importance of representing all women because they are the ones who actually buy the clothes. A few years ago one of my first agents, Akim, contacted me and said “It’s now the time of the girls that were famous in 2000, 2001. Do you want to go back to modeling? And I was like, ‘No, I’m doing my horse thing and stuff.’ He contacted me several times after. He said, “There’s this amazing designer, Marine Serre, who is into inclusivity; taking old clothes and making something else with it.” That goes completely with my philosophy. is the reason why I came back. I had a really good season in Paris this year. I did Vivienne Westwood for the first time since I stopped modeling. I think Andreas came back really strong alone. Vivienne was really, really in love with him. They were really connected; Vivienne was the image, but he was also always there. Marine Serre and Ester Manas are really about family. I feel like in the early ’00s was more about individuality; it was all about me—let’s not speak too much with other girls because maybe they want to steal your spot or something like that. Now it’s more about inclusivity but also getting together and using this strong family power to create something so the models feel safe. They choose me because of me, it’s not only about the physical part, but also what you stand for, your ethics and that’s what I really like. I’m very proud that women can find themselves in me. I am Belgian and Congolese and it was very difficult to be also a model, a colored woman in fashion [in the ’90s.] I was a first year fashion design student and one of my friends was selected to [present her graduate collection] and she asked me to be part of her show. Two agents, Jean and Akim, found me there and said, ‘Kina, we love you but you have to leave
Belgium because only blond girls with blue eyes can work.’ I was really feeling all that in school and everywhere; the color thing is very heavy in Belgium still, but much better than before but still. [Eventually] I went to Paris where I got my chance with Elite. My first Big show [in 1997] was Vivienne Westwood and that was really what really opened my career. I was already doing aerial [work] and all kinds of circus things while I was modeling to keep myself in real life. I would do flying trapeze after my casting instead of going to parties with everybody. I wanted to do something where I could put my energy to. I showed a picture [of my circus work] to a girlfriend backstage at Vivienne Westwood andVivienne stopped in front of me and looked at the picture. She was like, ‘That’s so cool,” and she decided to come to the circus space to see me. We really connected and then she decided to cast me for all her shows. She used to always say: ‘Follow your dreams.’ I was living in New York when the Wall Trade Center fell, and that pushed me to [make a change]. I wanted to do something special in a place that no bombs [could reach] and where people can come and get empowered. I had bought some land and horses in Costa Rica in 2001 and in 2004, I had my daughter and I said, ‘Okay, that's a good moment to stop modeling. Maya Angelou, the Black poet, was always saying how important it is to be like a blessing for people; how it’s important to be a sun for people, and how you can inspire people to do whatever you want and to bring all these differences also inside whatever you do. When I started modeling, when they looked for Black models, I was not Black enough, when they looked for white models, I was not white enough, or they took you at that time because they didn’t want to take the Black girls. It was like you could never find a spot, so it’s always been very important for me to say, ‘No, be who you want. Whatever you put your mind to, just do it and then you’ll see if it works or not. Just go for it.’ It’s the same with the flying trapeze, when you leave the platform [if you miss] you will fall on the mat, there’s a security bed—don’t worry, just go for it.