Photos from left to right: Rhonda Garrett, Kelsey Timas, Beth Wood, Vicky Andrews and Karen McDonald. Photo credit: Matthew Wonderly.
“I love it that I see more and more women come into this field after their kids are grown in order to pursue their own dreams. Their secret is confidence.”
Instagram. Almost all work now comes from there and these are not professional models either; they are regular women who have great style,” said Jacobson.
Claire Roberts, the owner of Claire Roberts Style and a personal stylist for Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh, sees the change as encouraging, and a result of not only attitude adjustments but also consumer supply and demand.
Great style like that of her mother, 84-year-old model Dorrie Jacobson, who joined the ranks of bloggers and social media style influencers four years ago after a 50-year hiatus from the start-up fashion career of her 20’s and early 30’s, is exactly what we’re seeing. The senior Jacobson was a runway model until the age of 25 and then became a Playboy Bunny, helping open Hugh Hefner’s first club. In her words, she soon “aged out” and next joined the Polaroid Company as a brand ambassador, followed by marriage and childbirth by age 32. This ended Jacobson’s stint in fashion until 2013 when, after complaining about not seeing any older women in fashion magazines or clothing represented she could wear, the Senior Style Bible blogger was born. She has gained a lot of attention recently for donning her old Playboy Bunny suit for the blog along with a lingerie collection to promote the blog’s message of body positivity at all ages.
“Finally, in recent years, the fashion world has started paying attention to underrepresented people and are now saying, you know, the majority of people buying our clothes are not all young white women with blonde hair and are not all twiggy-like either. So now we in the public are seeing models that are sizes 8 or 10 and up, and they are also different ages and ethnicities. This trend is really playing out now in the marketplace, too.”
“I love it that I see more and more women come into this field after their kids are grown in order to pursue their own dreams. Their secret is confidence.”
And nothing drives the marketplace in modern times more than social media. So, just when you think you have seen it all, along comes a savvy set of older women who are the new online ambassadors of the new face of aging. Instagram, according to Jodi Jacobson, creative director and photographer for the Senior Style Bible, is the go-to social media platform of choice for these fashionistas. The Senior Style Bible is one such Instagram blog.
“A lot of marketing dollars are moving away from traditional advertising and many brands are paying Instagram influencers instead, so on the whole, marketing strategies for selling have changed and gone to
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With an audience of ages from 18 to 80, the Las Vegas duo has racked up a total following of about 80,000 people - with 40,000 of those from Instagram and the rest logging into their Facebook, website and other social platforms. The mother-daughter pair set out to dispel the myth that older women were out of their prime and therefore should be out of the picture. Jodi Jacobson explained, “My mom wanted to show clothing for women over 50 that was cool and edgy,