”For the first time in my life, people are saying I`m doing something good in my ads,” says Calvin Klein, long known for his controversial advertising. ”Before this happened, people were always screaming about them, talking about how they upset people. Now they`re saying my ads are making them happy.”
The ads that Klein and others are chatting up these days are not his usual brand of intertwined bodies and near-naked men in showers or double entendre jeans commercials dating to the early Brooke Shields days.
Klein`s new ads are more provocative than that: They feature a 40-year-old woman.
When Klein resurrected a face from the past-a woman named Lisa Taylor who hasn`t modeled for 10 years and whose heyday in Vogue was in the `70s-and featured her in his spring ads, lots of folks took notice.
They`ll probably take notice, too, that the 40-year-old Taylor wasn`t a one-time fling. Her pictures appear again in Klein`s fall magazine ads later this month.
While they`re at it, the trend watchers might also note that Taylor`s not the only woman old enough to vote who`s out there promoting products:
– Lauren Hutton is on the cover of the August J.Crew catalog, her third cover since she started modeling a year ago for the company that specializes in understated casual clothes. In the past few years, sometime-actress Hutton, who started modeling 27 years ago, has appeared in magazine features, has modeled for Barneys New York and Revlon ads, as well as in a Thierry Mugler Paris runway show and says she`s ”making more money now than I ever did.”
She`s 48.
– Catherine Deneuve, once a favorite in Chanel perfume ads, is now the image and advertising model for a new skin care line from Yves Saint Laurent Parfums Corp. that`s selling in Europe and will be introduced in this country in February, four months after actress Deneuve turns 49.
– Cheryl Tiegs, who`s modeled glasses for Welling International for five years, just had another five-year contract renewed, pretty reassuring since it will take her almost to her 50th birthday. Tiegs also does TV and print ads for Kraft`s Light n` Lively low-fat dairy products and is the mother of 8-month-old Zack. Tiegs is 44 ”and proud of my age.”
– Jaclyn Smith, once a ”Charlie`s Angel” and now a star on TV specials, has been Kmart`s fashion spokesperson for seven years and the company estimates that 30 million women are wearing Jaclyn Smith sportswear, hosiery, handbags, lingerie, watches and sunglasses. She`s a mother of two and is 44.
– Isabella Rossellini has been the Lancome model for 10 years and continues in what has more recently become an even stronger role as spokesperson, says the company`s president Pierre Rogers, noting: ”We are aging very well together, don`t you think? Our customers see that Isabella has lived, just as they have lived. It shows in her eyes.” Rossellini turned 40 on June 18.
It`s called life
Though they`re not alone, these women are among the most visible role models for a reality check in fashion advertising.
Does using older models (”When I say `I`m an older model,` it sounds like I`m a car,” says Lisa Taylor) portend the end of an era for the hotshot Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington types who start modeling in their teens and often peak in their twenties? Does it-alas-mean that aging`s ”in”?
”We`re youth-obsessed,” says Allure magazine`s editor in chief Linda Wells. ”And that is probably not going to change for awhile. But, we have come to a time when women are tired of looking at ads for eye creams and seeing models who are still using Clearasil.”
”Lots of things are turning upside down these days, that`s the way the world is,” says Lauren Hutton. ”Using older models is not a fluke, it`s a historical precedent. It`s the beginning of a new time-thank God.”
Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .
But leave it to a pop culture maven to zero in on the phenomenon of
”gracefully maturing models.” According to Michael Marsden, professor of popular culture and associate dean of the college of arts and sciences at Ohio`s Bowling Green State University: ”Baby Boomers are 77 million strong and they`re getting to middle age and beyond. They`re looking for people who look like they do.
”People are tired of being uncomfortable about not measuring up to the ideal. When you talk about ideal, that leaves most of us out,” he continues. ”It`s just not good business to use what I call `Vogue` or `Perfect Models` all the time. Why build a kind of self-hatred into advertising?”
Lisa Taylor agrees, saying it`s ”unfair” for people to compare themselves to young models. ”Nobody looks like some of those models. Even the models don`t look like those models. They`ve got the best makeup artists in the world working on them. That`s not reality.”
It`s this reality-image factor-and not always specific ages-that`s guiding companies in keeping or choosing models who`ve passed their 20s.
Calvin Klein, in fact, is adamant in stressing that ”this whole thing is not about age and not about demographics. It gets boring just looking at 18-year-olds and it`s time to appreciate the view that when a girl becomes a woman, she really becomes beautiful. More attractive. Even sexier.”
Making the right connection
What Klein and other advertisers find in models such as Taylor or Hutton is their sense of experience, of knowing what`s going on in the world. They warm to words such as ”womanly,” ”unthreatening.” Most of all, they want consumer and model to relate.
”There`s something about Lauren`s personality that comes off in film and people identify with her,” says J.Crew`s creative director, Jim Nevins, who says Hutton`s age didn`t mean a thing to him, her style did.
”She has an incredible American quality,” he continues. ”She represents an attitude, a spirit that becomes kind of an ageless thing.”
Hutton, who calls herself ”the oldest, regularly working model in the world-maybe even in history,” claims she kicked off the older model trend two years ago with the Barneys ads. ”When they were running, women of every class and color stopped me to shake my hands and tell me it was great. What it did was make young women think that there is a future after 35.”
Though their looks are quite different, Hutton and Rossellini share a certain cachet: they`re perceived as friendly. ”She`s like a familiar face in the crowd,” Nivens says of Hutton; ”Isabella is not untouchable,” claims Rogers. ”Consumers see her as warm and honest. She makes women feel at ease. She could understand their problems, certainly more than a young model might.”
Image-not age-is the lure
Neither demographics nor age played a part in the choice of Deneuve as the ”face” of the new YSL Precursor skin-care line, according to the company`s public relations director Courtney Chamine. It was the long friendship between designer and actress that led to the alliance, she says.
”Catherine represents ageless beauty, she is someone whom women can relate to whether they are 25 or 65.”
That`s probably what Joseph E. Antonini, chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of Kmart, thought when he signed Jaclyn Smith as celebrity/fashion spokesperson. He says research revealed that Smith had ”an excellent quality image and a strong belief in family values. Customers love her,” he says, ”we receive calls and letters daily.”
Age ”sort of” played a part in the choice of Cheryl Tiegs as model for Welling International, since their product is eyeglass frames, says Mary Louise Appel, the firm`s creative/marketing director, but mostly it is ”her wholesomeness and the honesty she projects. She`s not threatening and both men and women adore her.” From the business standpoint, face recognition certainly helps: ”People ask for Cheryl Tiegs` frames.”
Speaking for Kraft`s Light n` Lively products, Linda Eatherton, says Tiegs was a natural because she`s ”a prime example of a woman who has healthy habits but isn`t a fanatic. She`s seen as the girl next door, down to earth. And, she`s not 20,” she adds, noting that customers are primarily in their 30s and 40s.
Tiegs identifies her own appeal by explaining that ”I came from a basic background and have always understood and been able to relate to the mentality of mass market for both men and women.”
End of an era?
Professor Marsden says this relationship of consumer to image is definitely a trend. ”Most of us tend to identify with models who are more like us and especially with someone like Hutton because she never claimed to be perfect. She never fixed the space between her teeth. She`s not plastic.
”We`re coming from a 10-year period of reality ads,” claims Marsden.
”Remember `Where`s the beef?` and Lee Iaccoca doing a commercial? People want more of that reality. TV shopping channels and catalogs use more realistic models. We`ll always have hot, young models, but there will be more outlets for older models.”
This has already started to happen, says Theresa Zazzera, who heads two divisions at Ford Models in New York that specialize in representing models over 25. ”Business has increased a hundred-fold,” she says, noting that ”10 years ago, we had about 15 models, now we handle 100.”
Even though modeling agencies may be adding or expanding their roster of older models, finding the right woman for the job is not that easy, say advertisers and magazine editors.
”Women like Isabella Rossellini and Lauren Hutton are not run of the mill in any way,” says Mirabella founder Grace Mirabella. ”They are greats. We`re always looking for another face. But there`s a world out there you have to work with. Photographers. Model agencies. They have to be willing to change their ways.”
Steven Meisel, one of New York`s hottest photographers who pals around with Madonna and shot the Calvin Klein campaigns featuring Lisa Taylor, counters with, ”I`m always trying to get editorial or advertising clients to use girls that are older. There`s such a stigma to age in this country. Women are considered not attractive, not worthwhile, physically and vocationally, after they`re 30.”
Meisel hopes that using older models isn`t a trend: ”I hope it`s an awakening.”
Allure`s August cover just may be a good sign. Says editor in chief Wells: ”There are definite crow`s feet on the model on that cover and I don`t want to airbrush those out. That`s reality, that`s something you can identify with.”
