Doubly Invisible

Photographer: Mark Bigelow

It has now become fairly widespread to discuss the invisibility of older women. Articles and blogs appear to have embraced the term. "Older women are invisible", that's always the starting point of any discussion on the topic of age and ageism. But a recent conversation with a friend of mine, Denise, who happens to be non-caucasian, made me rethink this whole issue.
She is of Afro-Caribbean origin, a couple of years older than me, a mother of three. She has a background in education and is currently doing a little modelling, mainly as an extra.
I was praising to her the far-sightedness of a feature which appears regularly in the weekend magazine of The Guardian, the Fashion for all Ages. I have not seen anything like it anywhere else, this is a fashion feature which uses models of all ages, styled to show how the same type of garment can be used, differently, by women (and men, as sometimes there are features about men) of all ages. The key word is style. Proudly, I showed her the few issues of the magazine in which I had modelled for the feature. She looked with great interest and then said, with a smile "Do you realise how tokenistic this feature is? All I see is older white models. Do you mean to tell me that older women of colour do not exist? That they cannot be stylish?".

Photographer: Steven Harrison Brown. Designer: Tuedor-Wright

I was taken aback and felt at a loss for words. I had never considered it from that angle. "But look", I said "Look. The young models are not all white". She smiled again. "No, but show me older models in here that are not caucasian". On my iPad I searched for earlier features, going back to 2009 and found only two, part of the same shoot, with an older non-white model named Gloria. "That was five years ago, when they had just started the feature" said Denise "Five years. I rest my case".
I was mortified, I felt somewhat complicit. Of course, I have nothing to do with how the feature is run, I only modelled a few times for it and that was last year. But I suddenly saw it in a different light and I realised that the category 'older women' is extremely broad and does nothing to eliminate other differences. Race is definitely one of them.
Fashion is ageist but also terribly racist. The worst form of racism is the subtle one, the one that does not even seem to exist.

Photographer: Steven Harrison Brown. Designer: Tuedor-Wright

"You may be invisible" Denise told me "but I am doubly invisible, because of my age and my colour. A young model of colour will now and again be seen. An older model of colour? Only if your name is Iman or Naomi, and even then, parsimoniously."
I will be scrutinising fashion periodicals from now on to see whether there is any feature with older models of colour, but I fear Denise is right. Meanwhile I am writing to The Guardian, Lifestyle section, as a reader and activist. Something like:
 Dear Guardian Fashion for All Ages, can we please see more older models with a diverse ethnic background? Can we not have older women represented only by tallish, thin Caucasian models?Yours sincerely, Alex
I doubt this will have an impact but, you never know, it is worth trying.