Valerie Taylor models in new National Geographic Wear campaign aged 88

Australian icon Valerie Taylor talks to Sydney Confidential about fronting a new modelling campaign at the age of 88.

Valerie Taylor in the campaign for National Geographic. Picture: Supplied

Valerie Taylor sees the funny side of fronting a global fashion campaign at the age of 88.

The veteran conservationist, photographer, scuba diver and filmmaker is the face of National Geographic’s new apparel collection.

“I think it is ridiculous,” Taylor told Confidential as she dropped by the National Geographic pop-up store at Sydney’s QVB on Tuesday.

“I don’t think the campaign is (ridiculous), just me being a model at my age. It is a giggle. I am enjoying it. There are so many beautiful young models around so I was surprised to model, yes. Anyhow, here I am.”

The wife of late shark expert Ron Taylor is an icon of the industry who has appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine twice – first in 1973 and subsequently 1981.

She still dives, her last adventure being a month ago.

Valerie Taylor models for National Geographic. Picture: Supplied

Valerie Taylor said she still goes scuba diving. Picture: Tim Hunter

Taylor shot the campaign at Cathedral Rocks near Kiama with young models Astrid Holler, who happens to be studying environmental science, Pierce Jones and Zac Panyar.

“I’ve never considered myself fashion-forward but a lot of the clothing that I wore as a diver has now been manufactured,” she said, adding of her lifelong legacy: “All of the animals, the information that my husband and I gathered, and probably the places we discovered before they had satellites or anything to find them. We’d be out at the Coral Sea, we would see a dark patch under water, we’d stop and have a look and find something not seen before.”

Ron and Valerie Taylor in 1963.

Valerie Taylor has worked on countless documentaries over the years.

Taylor is also a keen painter and has an exhibition in South Australia later this month.

She has worked on countless documentaries and worked in movies including Jaws, Gallipoli, Year of Living Dangerously and The Blue Lagoon.

She is often asked by young women and girls particularly how they can follow in her footsteps.

“I say, you can’t,” she said.

“I tell them to be just like yourself and be afraid of nothing. When I talk to these young people, the parents don’t understand. Their parents want them to do this and do that. It is nothing to do with them, do it your way. If you know it will be a good thing, it will be a success.”

Taylor writes a daily diary and has done since 1969. Her story, she said if ever told on the big or small screen, is simple.

“You’ve got right on your side, you are going to win,” she said. “Never tell a lie, make sure everything you say is fact.”

Taylor also issued a warning for others to do their bit on the environment.

“Nature gave the planet a wonderful marine-world, over 63 per cent of the planet is ocean,” she explained. “It is the mother of all life on this planet and we are killing it, we are killing its inhabitants and we are polluting its waters. If we don’t stop and reverse this trend, the ocean will die and we will die because we can’t live without it.”