Invisible? Hardly. Older women are everywhere in fashion

On Friday night the Melbourne Fashion Festival will stage a show dedicated to older models and consumers called F--- the Invisible. The ticketed event is marketed as a gloved middle finger raised in the stretched face of a fashion industry overlooking older women.

The problem, apart from the cringy name, is a concept that’s as out of date as the peasant blouse at the back of your wardrobe.

Many women suffer from feelings of invisibility socially and in the workplace as they age, but today you can’t doomscroll fashion hashtags without seeing Demi Moore, 62, on the Oscars red carpet, Michelle Pfeiffer, 66, in the latest advertising campaign for Saint Laurent, or ’60s supermodel Penelope Tree, 75, stealing the spotlight in the Fendi show at Milan Fashion Week.

Supermodel Naomi Campbell, 54, on the DSquared2 runway at Milan Fashion Week.Credit: AP

Older women are not just in fashion, they are interwoven into its dry-clean-only fabric as designers, models, editors and customers.

This season the international runways and front rows have been filled with superannuated models, in creations from Prada designer Miuccia Prada, 75, and Donatella Versace, 69, all cooly observed by the sphinx-like US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, 75.

These women are not always covered up in Diane Keaton’s coastal grandma chic. While The Crown actor Lesley Manville, 68, exuded elegance on the runway in a Burberry coat at London Fashion Week, Naomi Campbell strutted Cher-style in thigh-high boots and a lace-up leather bodysuit for the DSquared2 show in Milan.

Fashion search engine Tagwalk reported that roughly three-quarters of the top 20 shows in Paris and Milan this time last year featured at least one older model.

Penelope Tree, 75, Fendi, Milan Fashion Week; Donatella Versace, 69, Vanity Fair Oscars Party; Lesley Manville, 68, Burberry, Lodnon Fashion Week. Credit: Getty Images

The Melbourne Fashion Festival already features 22 older models of varying ability and sizes in its program, so do we really need to ghettoise our grand dames?

“Segregation has never worked,” says model Kate Bell, 56, a familiar, gently lined face on the runway at Australian Fashion Week. “We are doing OK when it comes to older models.

“Australia is doing better than Copenhagen Fashion Week and that is meant to be the most progressive runway in the world. I don’t understand, if a mature woman fits a sample size, why is she not in the mix?”

There have been positive changes, but the industry is still dealing with age representation, as it backslides on size diversity with the impact of Ozempic.

As with Melbourne Fashion Festival’s main runway shows, older models are significantly outnumbered backstage, where anyone aged over 25 can be seen as a veteran. While older customers are more likely to be able to afford Chanel handbags and Loewe gowns, brands are still chasing the cool currency that comes from youthful appeal.

“The industry still has some growing up to do,” says stylist and mature model Carol Sae-Yang. “For decades, fashion has marketed to women through a lens that prioritises youth and desirability. But we aren’t dressing for approval any more. We’re dressing for ourselves.

“We’re dressing for ourselves,” says stylist Carol Sae-Yang.

“We’re asking for great clothes, period. Clothes that acknowledge the realities of our bodies while celebrating the freedom and confidence that comes with this stage of life.”

On the surface, an event dedicated to older fashion might seem like progress. The show is already on its way to being sold out, with last year’s silver-haired runway greeted with whoops and hollers.

It works as a marketing tool for a no-longer-girls’ night out, where attendees will get to see former Olympic swimmer Nicole Livingstone, television personality Nicky Buckley and former Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp model Australian design. It doesn’t work as a representation of fashion as it is.

Speaking to a number of designers from last year’s show, it also doesn’t drive clothing sales. That might be because ticket holders are looking for themselves on the runway and not at the clothes.

“It reminds me of the ghetto that used to be around plus-size clothes,” says former Vogue editor and author Kirstie Clements. “Whether it’s size or age, we need the runway to really be about the clothes.

Vivienne Westwood, giving the thumb if not the middle finger backstage at London Fashion Week in 2014, where she wore a “Yes” badge and Scottish flag in support of Scotland’s independence referendum. Credit: Reuters

“We can all wear whatever we want, but putting older women in clothes that are deliberately nutty for shock value is pointless. We just want clothes that fit our life without any false gaiety and forced zaniness.

“I don’t need to see myself reflected on the runway to know that a coat is beautiful.”

Older women are not invisible in fashion, thanks to the pioneering middle finger of designer Vivienne Westwood, who refused to age gracefully, and the persistence of ’80s supermodels. The only hand signal mature models now need is to indicate merging into the mainstream rather than being forced into their own lane.

Damien Woolnough is the fashion editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.