‘Greyfluencers’ usher in the era of the older model

The industry that put its clotheshorses out to pasture at 25 has just discovered that diversity sells, and Sydney model Jan Jacobson is loving the chance to come out of retirement.

Jan Jacobson was 40 when she called curtains on her “extraordinarily long” modelling career to raise her two children in Vaucluse and refocus on designing fashion.

“I started my first job at 19 but wasn’t taking it seriously,” she said. “At 22, I got signed by a German agency and thought I’d do it for a month or so.”

Jacobson modelled for Moschino (Milan), Gattinoni (Rome) and Lecoanet Hemant (Paris), launching an independent label in Paris before migrating to London, to open a pret-a-porter and bridal studio in 2001.

“Just because you’re a model doesn’t mean you’re beautiful,” Jacobson said. “It’s still really hard for me to say that. I don’t think I am.”

“I started to travel for the next couple of decades and I didn’t think it would even last long.”

Her husband’s family brought the US-born talent to the eastern suburbs.

Sydney-based model Jan Jacobson, 59, has returned to modelling. She is seen here featured in the NAJO jewellery campaign Serenity.

Jacobson is now 59 and modelling once more.

This year, she signed on with Chadwick Models to walk in Australian Fashion Week and since then, has appeared in campaigns for Australian slow jewellery brand Najo and Mecca.

“I started as a runway model because I was told I wasn’t beautiful, that I have a ‘character’ face.

“They would say your face doesn’t match your hair colour. You have a brunette’s face.

“I was tall and knew how to walk well in heels, and knew how to carry clothes because I used to make them.

“There was a definite divide between runway girls, and photo girls. A catwalk is from a distance, you don’t have to be pretty.”

Jacobson was told she “wasn’t beautiful”.

She was considered to have “character”.

“I still always carry my insecurities from before, it’s impossible to get rid of those.”

There was a time when models were signifiers of an ideal, and not emblematic of actual customers.

This was the accepted wisdom — that fashion was aspirational, not accessible, and by its very exclusivity, alluring.

That has changed.

On TikTok, Aussie “greyfluencers” are amassing millions of followers.

Jacobson says the current industry is more respectful of models.

However she does have concerns about the toxicity of social media.

Supermodels such as 79-year-old Lauren Hutton have no plans to retire and 60-year-olds are signing up to open casting calls.

NAJO jewellery founder Jo Tory said that “within a world often fixated on youth, we recognise the significance of ensuring our customers feel seen and celebrated.”

Adding that hiring Jacobson to be the face of her new Serenity campaign was a no-brainer.

“Jan’s presence emanates a certain refinement that experience brings, and the resonance has been nothing short of remarkable. The reaction she’s received reaffirms our conviction in celebrating the allure of maturity,” Tory said.

A glimpse at AFW runways, a scan of a fashion magazine, a scroll of Instagram — all confirm that models, once paragons of unattainable, unreasonable beauty, are now decidedly more real.

That’s good for them and good for business.

“I was shocked by AFW this past year,” Jacobson said. “They asked me if I was OK with the clothing, if I wanted privacy to change, and they fed me.

“I said, ‘are you kidding me?’. All of these things never existed before. Respect is one thing I feel has hugely changed.”

However, as a mother of a 16-year-old daughter, Jacobson feels “the social media onslaught is toxic,” to young people’s self-esteem in a raft of new ways.