We need an over 60 style icon

An 81kg Australian model is being widely spoken about this week and her achievements celebrated. News.com.au reports, “the Australian beauty embraces her fuller figure and the fashion industry is embracing her right back”.

This is terrific news for larger women everywhere, but with the over 60s representing a significant proportion of the fashion buying public, why don’t we see more over 60s models?  Or anyone of mature age representing this agegroup?

Today’s over 60s are much younger than their years, and dress with more style and confidence than their mothers at the same age. And yet, the fashion industry seems to ignore this significant buying public and continues to portray images of young looking models, now thin and plus sized apparently.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if over 60s could be more widely represented in fashion. That we could see incredible over 60s style icons in the latest runway shows or appearing more widely in fashion advertisements or magazines.

Who could be these Australian icons of style that tastefully represent over 60s to the fashion world?

In the UK Twiggy has been featured in Marks and Spencer campaigns gaining terrific success. Lauren Hutton is currently being featured in a campaign in the US for skinny jeans, Banana Republic and Bloomingdale’s are only now just staring to show over 60s models in catalogues with contemporary styles. These examples are scarce and in Australia it is very rare.  In fact, we couldn’t find any…

With over 50 percent of the buying public over the age of 50 and our ageing population growing so rapidly it seems silly that advertisers in Australia continue to put young models in their campaigns. The over 60s of today are stylish and keep up to date with the latest trends and deserve to have people of their age portrayed as style icons.

Haveyour say, would you be more inclined to buy from a brand if they had images using over 60s style icons?