New Zealand lingerie brand Lonely‘s Spring 2017 campaign features a stunning 56-year-old model named Mercy Brewer.
Co-founder and Lonely designer Helene Morris told Stuff magazine, “The beauty and fashion industries are so obsessed with youth, but the reality is we are all aging, and there are so many wonderful things about growing older. So often the primary message around age is intervention, which is a frustrating response to such a natural, inevitable process.”
That’s the best thing I’ve heard all year.
Growing older really is wonderful in a lot of ways. For me the biggest benefit has been feeling more confident and comfortable in my own skin. I suppose when you live in your skin long enough that’s bound to happen. I was just thinking this morning in my dance class how I wish I could have been as self assured as I am now when I was younger. I look at old pictures and want to cry when I think about the disparity between what I looked like on the outside and how I felt on the inside.
I still have my insecurities, god knows, but they are fewer and when they do rear their ugly little heads, I have an easier time managing the discomfort. I guess that’s what age (and therapy) will do.
There have been several campaigns similar to Lonely’s in the past. There were Joni Mitchell for Saint Laurent, and Joan Didion for Celine, Jessica Lange for Marc Jacobs, and Helen Mirren and Diane Keaton for L’Oreal. And every time a campaign featuring an older women comes out, I hope it’s some kind of trajectory—but it usually turns out to be an anomaly. Fingers crossed this time is different!
Photos via Lonely
