It could be said that fashion belongs to the young… but then fashion is also all about breaking rules. Looking for its new face among the world’s most beautiful women, fashion house Dolce & Gabbana chose not a waif-like Parisian nor a voluptuous Italian but a 73-year-old grandmother from Hertfordshire, England.
Daphne Selfe will earn an estimated £40,000 fronting the D&G Diffusion Youth, for which celebrity snapper Mario Testino photographed her.
And that is just the beginning – Pop Idol winner Will Young has asked her to appear in his new video and she is earning up to £1,000 a day for glossy magazine shoots. Jean Paul Gautier says Daphne – who started work as a model aged 19 and whose most recent modelling assignments include Stannah stairlifts and Age Concern – is one of his favourite catwalk models and the offers have already started flooding in for the autumn fashion shows.
“Yes, I was that elderly woman on the chairlift who appears on the back of magazines,” says Daphne. “Suddenly my career has taken off like a rocket. I can’t believe all this fuss, but it’s very flattering. I didn’t dream I would still be working at my age, let alone enjoying all the success and jetting all over the world. I’ve got so many jobs on the go. I have to pinch myself that it’s all really happening. I might as well forget retirement – I’ve never been so busy.”
From July, Daphne will be plastered all over posters and magazines for one of the world’s leading fashion houses, posing in a daring mini-skirt and high-heeled leather boots. The inspiration for the Dolce & Gabbana campaign is the family and Daphne will appear as a trendy matriarch, lording over three generations of relations.
“I do all the grannyish things other women of my age do, like sewing and pottering around the garden” says the model. “I adore looking after my four grandchildren and spoiling them, of course.” Twins Jack and Alec, eight, Grace, six, and Robin, four, adore their gran and can’t wait to see her in the new campaign. Daphne has no plans to call the whistle on her career and hopes to be able to prove that fashion is truly ageless. “I’m loving my new-found fame,” she says. “My new motto is, ‘Enjoy it while you can.’”
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
