The question of beauty.

Bosom friends!

We have gone from one extreme to another...

So an actress in her mid 40's who "freshened up" her face is to be condemned and scrutinized.
Agreed, right?

On the other hand an 83 years old supermodel gracing the cover of a magazine has to be praised and glorified as an iconic symbol of the "age-is-just-a-number" motto.

I am referring to Carmen Dell'Orefice featured on the cover of New You magazine.

Naturally the social medias and tabloid writers have gone and made a circus parade out of some pictures.
Carmen is indeed looking AMAZING at the tender age of 83. I swear to myself she is the old lady I will be in my 80's.

Her career started at age 15 when she posed for her first Vogue cover. Not too shabby. Since then she has been working as a model with short breaks here and there due to her three marriages. She also found the time to go bankrupted twice because of bad investment ventures. I suppose that is why she had to keep working for 7 decades.
I won't go into the specifics of the word "work" associated to "modeling". Suffice to say that she is the oldest supermodel not the oldest coal miner. Certain jobs translate better than others into a 70 years long career.

In all honesty I don't get all this sensationalism.
Carmen Dell'Orefice is indeed the oldest working supermodel but I don't see how her experience can be seen as a representation of women emancipation from all age stereotypes.

First of all she is genetically very fortunate.
You cannot work on your genes. One can only work with them, make the most of what you were given. So Dell'orefice already started from a very privileged place plus she IS a supermodel not a diner waitress.

Second, Carmen is truly a remarkably beautiful woman and beauty age well no matter what.
Cute doesn't endure, beautiful does.

Third, the pictures that are circulating today are heavily photoshopped like any other fashion image.
Yes the lady has sky high cheekbones and legs that start right behind her ears but when she is not professionally draped by a team of fashion peeps she DOES look like a woman in her 80's. A gorgeous one indeed but not as uncannily fresh as those pictures lead us to believe.

Fourth and last: we all need to know who is the surgeon who worked on her face, he/she deserves a cover picture too.

My question is:

Why do we have to underline the fact that this beautiful creature is still a supermodel at 83 like she was the last surviving dinosaur?

Basically she gets a free pass because she is stunningly beautiful.

If you are old but not aesthetically pleasing you are as valuable as chopped liver.

Yes, it is amazing that a model has survived in such youth oriented industry for so long.
What we need to remember is that there are millions of other women that have been doing way harder and more substantial jobs for perhaps less years but with as much tenacity and perseverance.
For instance nobody slaps on a cover a nurse who is doing voluntary work in a mission in some remote area of North Africa.

Apparently those women are not beautiful, glamorous or old enough to be noted and praised for their hard work and unfortunately they wouldn't sell as many copies as Carmen would (I am as guilty as anybody else, I do love a nice fashion spread on a glossy magazine).

The legendary Carmen Dell'Orefice deserves all the glory she has been given (after all she has endured in a very age discriminating industry) but let's not forget that there is nothing sensational about beauty regardless of age.

Being beautiful simply happens to you.

Unfortunately our society has given to beauty a disproportionate significance-vs-substance ratio.
Sadly this consideration is as old as Carmen Dell'Orefice.

Ciao for now.