Elle Macpherson: ‘I love being 54’
SHE may be 54, but Elle Macpherson is embracing the changes in her life and ageing ‘joyfully’. And she says she has two incredible men in her life … but Brad Pitt isn’t one of them.
VIC News
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THE most remarkable thing about Elle Macpherson is not the physical perfection that led to her being nicknamed “The Body”, but that the supermodel had the nous to make her moniker her money-spinner.
Macpherson, now 54, was just 25 when Time magazine dubbed her six feet (182cm) of bronzed limbs “The Body”.
“Like with all journeys, we have 20:20 vision in hindsight,” she says from her Miami home.
MACPHERSON STUNS ON HOLIDAY IN THE BAHAMAS
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“At the time, I didn’t really think I would be working in the public eye and still building a fashion brand for as long as I have, but I did know at the time that it was interesting enough to trademark.
“I wasn’t sure how I was going to use it, but I thought it was worthwhile if I was to go into any more interesting licensing deals.
“It wasn’t like I believed it, or thought, ‘I have the best body in the world’, I just thought it could be really good for business.”
As it turns out, she was on the money.
The Elle Macpherson Empire has boasted headline modelling contracts, a record five cover appearances for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, lingerie labels, television hosting gigs, skincare ranges and now, her WelleCo assortment of high-end, alkalising powders and products that bridge the gap between wellness and beauty.
Of course, being named The Body comes with its own pressures, but Macpherson says she has embraced all her body changes, from pregnancies with her sons Flynn, 20, and Aurelius Cy, 15, to ageing “joyfully”.
“I’m still here and I’m turning 55 and I’m just so grateful,” she says.
“I’m strong, I’m fit, I have two amazing sons and I’ve learnt a lot along the way and I’m really grateful that I’m as happy and healthy as I am. I love being 54.”
MACPHERSON: ‘I’M NOT HERE TO BE POPULAR’
Macpherson has protected her assets well, but admits turning 50 saw her renegotiate her holistic health regimen.
“I realised about four years ago, the things that I was doing in my 20s and 30s weren’t really working for me any more,” she says.
“I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t feeling great or looking great because I was doing the same things as I’d always done, but what I realised was that I needed to address wellness differently and my body was requiring different things.”
She says the sweet spot for a healthy life hasn’t changed a whole lot over time.
“It’s the same program that’s been around for all time: you need good clean protein, you need to have your vitamins and minerals, drink lots of water and get good sleep and exercise and lots of laughter and sunshine,” she says.
“These are always important elements, but particularly as you mature.”
At 50, Macpherson embraced a plant-based diet, became “a lot more diligent about not drinking coffee first thing in the morning,” and went from sleeping four hours a night to seven.
“I thought that sleeping very little was actually a sign of good health because I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve got so much energy I can work for 20 hours a day’, but I realised that I was running on adrenals and that’s not a healthy way to live,” she says.
“When I started to sleep more, my days became more productive, my digestive system changed, the way my body started to detox was more efficient, my moods became more consistent and my skin got better.
MACPHERSON DAZZLES ON THE RED CARPET
“I also stopped going to the gym as much and started trying to do things that I love outside, like bike riding, paddleboarding, windsurfing, waterskiing, snow skiing, hiking or walking dogs in the park, and I started doing yoga regularly a year ago.
“Then, when I started taking this multivitamin and mineral, whole food, probiotic, non-synthetic, prebiotic green powder on top of these changes in my lifestyle, within a couple of weeks I’d noticed huge changes.”
That green powder has become the basis for WelleCo’s best-selling, alkalising formula, The Super Elixir ($145 for 300g), which Macpherson developed with Western Australian businesswoman Andrea Horwood.
It is now stocked in more than 60 countries, as well as globally through their online store, and Macpherson opened a WelleCo store in New York’s hip Soho neighbourhood this week.
“When I realised that what I put into my body made a big difference to the way I looked and the way I felt within two weeks, I thought, ‘I have to share this with other women’ and that was how WelleCo came about,” she says.
“I had a problem, I found a solution and then I shared it with my partner and together we decided to build a concept around these plant-based ingestibles that bridge the gap between beauty and wellness.
“Being a brand that falls between beauty and wellness has had its challenges, because essentially we have created a new category, but I’m really proud to be pioneers in the ingestible beauty movement and to have spearheaded this innovative change in the wellness market.”
It helps that the founder is a pretty good pin-up girl for what the product stands for. “Wellness”, a zeitgeisty description of this generation’s pursuit of holistic health, is fast becoming part of our daily lexicon, and green-juice junkie Macpherson is one of its biggest advocates.
She details her typical day as starting “in quiet meditation” followed by a drink of hot water and lemon to “slowly start the digestive system”. That is followed by Vinyasa yoga and a session in the Therasage sauna, which is “very good for detoxing and supporting the immune system”.
Then the modern-day hunter-gatherer consumes a “powerful juice” consisting of celery, cucumber, kale, cilantro, parsley, lemon, garlic, ginger, turmeric and a sprinkle of her super greens elixir.
This isn’t the first drink Macpherson has advertised to Aussies.
In 1982, the then-unknown golden embodiment of our sand-and-sea lifestyle strutted across the screens of television sets around the country clad in a red bikini, to the melodic jingle “Tab Cola, what a beautiful drink; Tab Cola for beautiful people”.
So is this new elixir the real beautiful drink for beautiful people?
“We should actually do a remake of that ad. Imagine if we did; me walking down the beach holding The Super Elixir and the guy getting the water poured on his head,” Macpherson laughs, recalling the iconic imagery of the retro ad. “That’s given me a good idea.”
The powerful businesswoman is just as passionate about striking the elusive balance between entrepreneur and hands-on mother to her two sons.
“For me, parenting has brought me the greatest joy; it’s like the gift that keeps on giving,” she says of her sons with French financier ex-husband Arpad Busson.
“Someone once told me that the greatest gift you can give your children is your time and that’s a truth that really resonates with me, so I live by that.
“We work together as a family, and have a family calendar, and for me it’s about prioritising what brings me a lot of joy in my life, which is parenting.
“One of the things I’ve really impressed upon my children is to get to know themselves through exploration and trying new things.
“I’m a bit of a give-it-a-go girl, which I think is a very Australian characteristic, and so I encourage them to give things a go — you don’t have to be good at it, but just check it out.
“Like for their summer jobs, they get an opportunity to figure out what they enjoy doing, so this year Cy went and worked on a farm in Australia and Flynn did a watchmaking course.”
Family has always been important for the girl from Killara, on Sydney’s North Shore, and she says her father has had a strong impact on her outlook on life, particularly after turning 50.
“My dad taught me a lot, but all the men in his life died at 50 or close to, so when he was 40, he said, ‘OK, I’m going to retire’,” she says. “He said, ‘I’m going to sell my businesses and I’m going to live the next 10 years reaping the benefits of my hard work’.
“But he’s now nearly 80 and he’s still alive. He laughs, and says, ‘I didn’t expect to live this long’, and he’s had to reinvent himself constantly, because at 40 when he retired, he thought he only had 10 years to go. He constantly adapts and evolves.
“The fact I’m still here and working has been a big surprise to me too.”
Macpherson has inherited not only her father’s healthy genes, but clearly his ability to adapt and evolve. In the fashion industry, where megastars rise and fall more quickly than hemlines and necklines, Macpherson has been afforded great longevity and diversity in her career.
“Another thing my father actually shared with me was that if you love what you do and do what you love you will never work another day in your life,” she says.
“I think if there is one skill I strive for it would be adaptability, and I feel really privileged to be working in the wellness business that is so part of who I am as a woman and part of my journey as an Australian woman. To be able to be working in a business everyday in something I believe in has brought me great joy.”
Macpherson says the rise of social media has been one of the biggest game-changers she has witnessed in her industry.
“The thing is, the introduction of social media has changed so many businesses, including modelling,” she says. “In the ’80s, the more distance between you and your public, the more iconic and the more successful you were, and models at the time were larger than life, but today’s a really different story.
“Now, the more integrated you are with the public through social media and the internet, the greater the success.
“With WelleCo, which is predominately an online business, we’ve found speaking directly to our customer in intelligent and informative ways has been really the basis for our success and gives an opportunity for your brand to be heard. It’s a potent opportunity.”
But Macpherson is still grateful that she began her career without the pressures of social media.
“You develop different skills as you evolve, and we talked to each other, shared stories, read books; it was a very different way of communicating.”
The rise of social media also means celebrities lead a less private life than in the pre-internet days, and Macpherson, who rarely discusses her personal life, admits she still finds it confronting being at the centre of romantic rumours and gossip columns.
In recent months, Macpherson, who split from her second husband, billionaire property developer Jeffrey Soffer, last year, has been romantically linked to former doctor Andrew Wakefield, who was found to have acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in research which he claimed showed a link between the MMR jab and autism. The research has been widely discredited and his licence to practise revoked.
“All I know is that in the last few months I have been doing all sorts of things I had no idea about,” Macpherson says. “Like dating Brad Pitt and getting a $100 million divorce settlement.
“I never talk about my personal life, so I’m not going there. I have two incredible men in my life: my boys.”
However, Macpherson is passionately embracing what seems to be a new chapter in her life as a new-age 50-something.
“The quid pro quo is that you learn from your experiences; that if you take a risk, it doesn’t mean the whole world is going to fall apart,” she says. “It’s courageous to take steps that maybe you didn’t take when you were younger.
“So many wonderful things come with experience, and with experience you also recognise that if you look after your body, your body will look after you.”
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