Model agency Talent Management has just read news of documentary programme ‘About Face: The Supermodels Then and Now’. Aptly named, this collection of interviews and insights is due to lift the lid on the experiences of many highly respected models as they’ve grown older within the industry.
Director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders told Euronews: “‘About Face’ started out because I walked into a party – a Facebook party for (19)70s and (19)80s supermodels that my friend was giving – and I looked around the room and saw these gorgeous women. I thought, ‘Geez, that’s a photo or something. No one’s shot them in a while, it would be an interesting group shot’. But as I got to know them I realised, ‘Oh, this is obviously a film, it has got to be more than just a portrait’.”
Former supermodel Isabella Rossellini is one of those that he convinced to take part in the resulting project. The beautiful model and actress joined several others, including 82-year-old former model China Machado and 59-year-old Beverly Johnson – the first black model to cover Vogue – to discuss her experiences and the ways in which her life and work have been impacted by the aging process.
“My social status has diminished because, for sure, I’m not invited to the A parties any more. My daughter is,” revealed Rossellini during her interview. But at 60 years old she will not be persuaded to go under the knife in an effort to retain a more youthful appearance or increase her popularity. Instead she suggests that cosmetic surgery is the “new foot binding” for the modern woman – and why should she feel any different? She is still incredibly beautiful and elegant by anyone’s standards.
However, her opinion is not one shared by all of the former models featured on the programme. When asked for her thoughts on the matter, 81-year-old Carmen Dell’Orefice replied: “If you had the ceiling falling down in your living room, wouldn’t you go and have a repair?” A point that many would nod along to. In another bold statement the characterful working model added that modelling had given her the means to, “send my mother to college and buy my first husband”.
Kim Alexis summed up well when she expressed her views: “I think that it helps in the documentary that people see that it’s not all glamour and that sometimes people telling you you’re beautiful all the time can really be detrimental and that you have to work through a lot of things on your own self to figure out what really makes me important and it’s not this outside. That’s gonna go away. So you have to find something on the inside that makes you feel good about why you were put here on this earth and it’s not just to be another pretty face.”