Romanticizing Aging vs Normalizing it
on "silver models", "age inclusivity" and "sciuracore"
This one turned out pretty wordy so I thought I would do a voiceover (for the essay part) that way you can listen to it if you want.
I can’t wait to be old, I think it’s what I was born to do.
And yes, I do cherish the prospect of having a full life ahead of me and plan on enjoying every step of the journey towards old age. The reason I’m excited about being old is precisely because it implies I’ll have lived a long life. Just imagine all of the experiences I’ll inevitably have had, even if I end up leading the most mundane life. If I think of how much smarter, savvier and more reasonable I am today compared to just a few years ago, I can’t begin to imagine what a genius I’ll be in 50 years!
I know I’m simplifying it, but this is my instinctual position on aging. Am I just being a contrarian and pushing against the notion that aging is inherently bad? And am I being influenced by some external factors? Probably.
I have always identified with the elderly, but I believe my uncharacteristically optimistic attitude towards aging really took shape over the last few years. That happens to be around the time I moved to Milan, the home of the sciura. For those who don’t know, “a sciura is an elderly lady from the city center of Milan, who is essentially rich, elegantly dressed and often easily recognizable by her careless attitude.” (see @sciuraglam for more visual references)
The sciure are my favorite Milanese “thing,” along with beautiful old school bars, mid-century design, and of course aperitivo.
In my perfect fantasy world I am a sciura. I live in New York though, in the same building (called “The Gotham”) that my family and I moved into the first time we came to the city in 2004.
Every day, I lunch with my bestie, a fellow sciura who is just as fabulous as me but in a different way - we each have our own distinct personal styles, slowly perfected over the decades. We always patronize the same establishments, old school spots, tried and true institutions, where they know our order (something off-menu, a classic with an unexpected twist, always accompanied by a glass of wine).
I’m a member of the Met Museum of course (and of MoMA for the film series), which I visit regularly to chill in the Egyptian wing and look out onto the park. And maybe one day a young Art History student will take note of my visits and think to herself “I want to be just like her one day” and the romanticization cycle will go on.
I would love for that to be my legacy.
I’m fully aware of how delusional I sound and realize that romanticizing old age isn’t the same as embracing it, but could it be a step in that direction?
That’s what I like to tell myself, but I’m not sure. In part because I’ve been seeing a lot of headlines, articles, and posts celebrating the growing presence of so-called “silver” or “grey models” (sometimes meaning models over 50, but usually just over 30, lol) in ad campaigns and on the runway.
Here are just a few examples from the last year or so:
Age Is Not a Problem (NYT)
Models Wanted: Must Be Over 40 (Vogue)
Why older women are back in vogue for designer brands (The Telegraph)
Older women star in fashion campaigns – in pictures (The Guardian)
Put More Gray Hair on the Runways, You Cowards (Allure)
And listen, I don’t want to be a hater (I did in fact repost the Maggie Smith Loewe campaign), it appears that there is a move towards more “age inclusivity” in fashion (certainly more than any other type of inclusivity at least).
But I can’t help but feel like all this “discourse” is painfully superficial (like in the post above in which they don’t even attempt to define “older models”) if not downright misleading.
The main issue for me comes from treating this shift like yet another trend, just consider the nss headline Fashion's new look is rocking grey hair for example. Idk, could we maybe stop reducing something as complex as embracing old age to “rocking grey hair”?
All this being said, I plan on continuing to delusionally romanticize sciurahood for as long as this feeling persists. It might be influenced by passing trends but it rings true to me.
And hopefully superficial trends can serve as stepping stones towards deeper, more meaningful acceptance. After all, sciura culture predates all of this and is still going strong.
Things on my mind (no more voiceover going forward):
the (debated) etymology of the word posh, which (might) be “an acronym for "port out, starboard home", describing the cooler, north-facing cabins taken by the most aristocratic or rich passengers travelling from Britain to India and back.” I had never thought about it tbh, but someone mentioned it at lunch last weekend and I thought I would share.
this sciura-approved Barbie outfit
the fact that there was a moment in time when all jeans used to have bejeweled or otherwise embellished back pockets, which I had completely wiped from my memory until I read this article.
Kacey Musgraves’ new album, especially this song:
btw does anyone have any insight on why I (European atheist) respond so strongly to American country music with clear religious undertones?
this trench - any idea where I can find it??
Ok, bye for now from me and some of my heroes in their prime!
P.S. Let me know what you think of the voiceover and if you’d like me to include this feature going forward. Sorry there are a few hesitations here and there but I’m no voice actor (and also didn’t feel like starting over)
Bellissimo!! Sciure 4ever!!!
Woooah, Roberta podcast!