Vogue means never having to say you're seventy

tom ford for vogue paris via fashion_screen

Ah the Tom Ford issue of Vogue Paris. It just keeps on giving. Following the 'Forever Young' editorial in which a blinged-up grey-haired couple is caught by Ford's camera in flagrante delicto - and Ford's proclamation that he has had it with the cult of youth, the stigmatization of wrinkles and all those who "cheat" time - comes an editorial spread starring some of the women who modelled the new Tom Ford womenswear collection at his exclusive media launch at New York Fashion Week in September. And a couple of ringins, including Ali McGraw. (In order below) Betty Catroux, Marisa Berenson and Lauren Hutton look like ultra glamorous 60+ women - although any thinner and Berenson would have been at grave risk of being mistaken for a light stand in Vogue's studio. The Love Story star, however, doesn't look a day over 45. Which is fascinating, since McGraw is in fact 72. Granted, she has been practicing yoga for the past 20 years, but considering that this is what McGraw looked like in 2006 and here she is in an interview with Oprah Winfrey several months ago - looking absolutely fantastic, we must say - is it just a question of good lighting or has she in fact been Photoshopped by Vogue to within an inch of her life? Given Ford's vigorous stance on ageing in the 'Forever Young' editorial, the latter scenario would seem more than a little inconsistent.

As it happens, McGraw has quite strong views on images of women in the media.
 

Here she is in another video interview, below. Uploaded by the reporter in 2009, it's unclear whether it was recorded that year, or perhaps several years earlier. 

On the issue of the celebrity-driven pressure to be thin, McGraw notes: 

“I have a raging fury against the media. Whether it’s a fashion magazine showing that this skinny 14 year-old is the way a grown-up woman is meant to look or this scared, tiny, starving herself pop star is the model against which our teenage and 20 year old and 30 year old women are meant to look. And I think it has to start with the media. And I'm just in a rage about it because I have watched a whole generation of kids behind.... You know, it’s always about fear... 'Am I enough?', 'Am I attractive enough?', 'Am I cool?' Because that’s the special word. And until we have images out there at the checkout counter that show what cool really looks like and it doesn’t look like an anorexic, cutting yourself girl, we’re going to have a population of kids looking like this. Because they’re so uncomfortable anyway with themselves, that they think a certain dress or certain bones showing, makes them OK and it doesn’t”.

Just out of interest, which model did Ford pick for the Vogue Paris December cover? New Dutch face Daphne Groeneveld. Who is 14.



 

all images: tom ford for vogue paris december 2010 via fashion_screen