Those who worship him regardless of where he works have continued to do so. Such is the power of Alessandro Michele, that after being the face of some mega brands for 10 years (namely Gucci and now Valentino), he remains bigger than the labels themselves. His debut collection for Valentino was presented at the recent Paris Haute Couture Week, and it has been adored by his adorers.
Michele, in typical disruptor style, has poked fun at a label’s archives by throwing in a tome for fashion editors to read, and even calling the collection ‘vertigineux’. But this biggest statement came when he sent out models who were over 50 and 60 years old.
In India, we call models “older” or “senior” when they are over 40. So this was a wonderful shattering of an ageist glass ceiling. That said, our good friend and last month’s cover star Sabyasachi beat him to it when he made the American supermodel Christy Turlington, 56, his showstopper here in Mumbai.
A model for Alessandro Michele’s new collection | Instagram@maisonvalentino
Sabyasachi told me during our interview, “Younger professionals can be replaced easily, the older ones bring intelligence into the room.” Michele agreeably stated, “Time provides grace, and it multiplies beauty.”
Age and gender was most certainly on Michele’s mind. He later said that he was thinking of women as taking up space, both literally and metaphorically. “How a dress can occupy a space in the room, and how it is beautiful when it is sometimes so massive and invasive,” he said after his show. He dressed his women with ordinary, centre-parted hairstyles, and minimal makeup, almost as an urgent plea to celebrate their original selves.
Age was most certainly on my mind when I saw Giorgio Armani tog up in a tuxedo to take the runway in Paris. Armani is 90, and his story is as much a hero story about Italian entrepreneurship. He founded his company, Armani SpA, in 1975, after selling his Volkswagen, along with his lover and business partner Sergio Galeotti. The company is the third largest luxury fashion house in all of Italy, after Gucci and Prada, and they are still privately owned by the founders (Luxottica is licensed to make their eyewear and L’Oreal to make their fragrances). He also pretty much invented dressing for Hollywood stars when he dressed Richard Gere for American Gigolo, and his tuxedo was a hark back to that.
It is ironic that Demi Moore is an Oscar frontrunner for the first time in her life (she is 62, and has starred in award-worthy roles in films such as Disclosure, Indecent Proposal, Striptease and Ghost) for a film, The Substance, that is a horrific comment on ageing. Whether she takes home the trophy or not, she will be on every designer’s front-row or red-carpet wishlist this season.
Ageing is most certainly a pivotal issue that affects older women more than men. It’s almost medieval that we still see men and women as baby machines. Only younger women are considered useful when fertile, while men can continue to be useful as they can have children even later. Older women are expected to disappear from society, to stay home and knit for their grandchildren, while men may continue to celebrate their successes thanks to their financial clout. All this, despite women outliving men in almost every country.
In the media, older women are expected to ‘age gracefully’, which means society is expecting women to look and behave in a certain way to be acceptable. Women, even older women, are told how to dress.
The American Society on Aging, in a blog, says this reminds them of American journalist Ambrose Bierce’s 1911 satirical collection of phrases, ‘The Devil’s Dictionary’, where he said, “Men have a body; women are a body.”
In a 2023 interview, actor Andie MacDowell said she was aching to embrace her grey hair as she was “tired of being young”. Being young is being insecure, and fashion is finally celebrating the older, liberated woman.
X@namratazakaria