We are all familiar with 'femvertising', the type of advertising which supposedly empowers women. It's been around for some years, and there are even awards given for the best ads.
There is merchandise that has grown around the idea of being pro-women, with an abundance of feminist-logo-carrying t-shirts.
I take it for what it is, a marketing strategy. Women want to feel empowered; embracing feminism on paper helps to sell. But it will not change the reality of unequal pay, and loss of choice over one's own body, which we, as women, have to contend with. Nevertheless, it feels good to walk around in a t-shirt that affirms individuality and is pro-women.
Alongside femvertising, there is now a plethora of pro-age products. Again, I do not think it does any harm, but it does not do much in terms of improving perceptions of older people.
Ok, your beauty brand now sells a pro-age cream rather than an anti-age one - in all likelihood, it is the same cream now marketed with a brand new name. Big brands seem to have embraced diversity and it is clearly done to help them flog their products.
There are endless podcasts and talks given at various fashion events, sometimes by people with little or no experience of the industry. Feeling enraged about your grandmother being treated condescendingly in a clothes shop is perfectly legitimate but this does not mean you can set yourself up as an expert on age-related issues in the fashion industry!
Clothes can be adapted to suit an individual style, and age, therefore, becomes immaterial in that context. To claim that one is selling pro-age clothes is a non-sequitur. All clothes are intrinsically pro-age. It is the way they are worn that, if at all, makes them suitable for a particular age. and ois there such a thing as 'suitable for a particular age'? Do we need to be prescriptive?
I do agree that the representation of older women and men in fashion and advertising is unsatisfactory. But I also believe that denying older women and men are grandparents or have physical ailments is unrealistic. Nor am I convinced that older women and men have more disposable income because that is not necessarily the case, certainly not in the current political and economic climate, in a Britain that is so divided. It depends very much on class. Middle and upper-middle classes may have more disposable income, but not lower-middle and working-class women and men.
Age is real, denying its relevance does not make any sense, we all agree on that. What we should be against is discrimination on the basis of age or representation of ageing based on a few stereotypes. Thus the article by RBH Creative Agency "How do older generations feel about marketing?" makes some excellent points but when they write "Stop showing women over 50 as grannies knitting in a chair, stop showing women over 50 as elegant cruise-taking cougars and stop showing women over 50 as poor pensioners opening their purse to see it empty" I think we are not quite there yet, these suggestions need to be further nuanced. Instagram is awash with over-50 influencers representing themselves as elegant, cruise-taking cougars and it is worrying to see how the stereotypes are embraced and perpetuated by the older generations themselves.
And now the industry seems to have taken a liking to the 'greyhairdontcare' movement, many years after it started, so much so that we are inundated with models sporting long silver tresses. It makes me feel like colouring my hair pink and indigo or chop it all off. I am happy with my hair, but I do not wish to be defined by it!
The bottom line is: no one has got it right yet!
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