Alongside me on the panel was Caryn Franklin, former fashion editor and co-founder of All Walks Beyond the Catwalk and Jody Furlong, who, among other things, cast the Dove Real Women campaign. Our discussion was titled Who Are You Calling Invisible? and centred around the marginalisation and neglect of older women by the beauty and fashion industry. This was only the second time I've done any public speaking (the first being last week at the Advanced Style premiere) but I have in the past taken to the stage to dance or model before an audience. You'd never have to look far for me before a show – I'd be the one in the wings with her head in a bucket, throwing up from sheer terror. It was so bad I had to strangle my stage career before I rotted the enamel off my teeth
Given the hysterical, and historical, trauma, you might venture a modest bet on how I'd deal with an audience and three very high bar stools. High bar stools are my nemesis. If there's a handy prop, then I can use that to help me mount, as it were, but there wasn't and I had to asked Furlong to give me a gentlemanly hand up. Did I flush scarlet and run away? No. I laughed it off because it was actually very funny and in a way underlined what we were there to talk about – how growing older is not something to be hidden and ashamed of but a source of pride. It is what it is and the media insistence that we want to "fight" age is largely misconstrued twaddle. But if you take into account that research shows the consumer is most likely to buy something if it is advertised in a way they can aspire to, connect with and recognise, then why is this still the case?
Furlong runs a modelling agency and said he frequently challenges what
advertising
people think they need but the final decision does not lie with him. Franklin (awarded the MBE for her work on diversity in fashion) spoke of looking around at decision-making meetings and seeing a uniformly male team.The
panel talked about the fact that an entire demographic is lumped into
the "50-plus" tick-box. If you suggested a consumer group as diverse as
one aged, say, 10 to 60 shared the same tastes, interests, income and
requirements you'd be laughed out of the room with your P45 tucked into
your pocket as you left. This is an important point, given many more of
us expect to see our centenary. And given that many more of us can now
expect to live to 100, should the advertising industry be evolving too?It's easy to feel all is hopeless but it's not.
The media storm that blew up over the skeletally thin La Perla mannequins meant that within 24 hours they'd been removed from the stores and an apology issued. You only have to tweet a single disobliging word about a company before their Twitter antennae start twitching and you get an emollient 140 characters manifesting in your timeline. This is real consumer power. It's no good suffering in silence and hoping someone else will start the revolution. We should all do more of that if we want to stop being called "invisible".
