Balenciaga this week named Isabelle Huppert as its brand ambassador. Not only is the French actress one of only two ambassadors ever appointed by the Spanish luxury brand – Thai singer Krit Amnuaydechkorn is the other – but more importantly, Huppert is 70 years old.
She has been a friend of the house for the past two years and even walked in its runway shows – and now she has become one of the first "faces" of Balenciaga. This is a great moment for the brand – which is still finding its feet in the aftermath of last year's scandal around children's toys in bondage gear – as well as being a major step forward for women.
While no one could ever accuse Huppert of being a typical old-age pensioner – she is exquisitely beautiful, tiny as a bird and dresses in designer duds – the fact she is being celebrated is a huge step on the journey of asking society to accept women past the first flush of youth.
Huppert may be wondrously smooth-faced for a woman in her seventies – which is down to a great skincare routine, no doubt – yet, her being held up as someone to admire gives the rest of us hope.
An older woman being feted is not about wanting to recapture a long-lost youth – any woman over 50 will tell you she has had her time and is happy to pass on the baton to the next generation – but rather wanting to still feel seen.
For too long a woman's worth has been inversely linked to her age – it declines as the years rack up. So to see a woman, who cannot be mistaken for a twenty-something, be applauded for her career, accomplishments and personal style is important and heartening.
Balenciaga joins a handful of other brands that have looked beyond the cult of youth and put an older woman in the spotlight. In 2005, Dior named American actress Sharon Stone, who was 47 at the time, as the face of its beauty and skincare range, while in 2013, Karl Lagerfeld made Tilda Swinton, who was 53 at the time, the face of Chanel's Paris-Edinburgh metier d'Art collection. Lagerfeld described her as “a modern woman, a timeless icon of elegance”.
Beauty company L'Oreal, meanwhile, is something of a champion for older women. In 2011, French model Ines de La Fressange was appointed spokeswoman at the age of 53, and a year later, actress Julianne Moore was named global ambassador at the age of 52. In 2014, the brand made actress Dame Helen Mirren, who was 67 at the time, the face of its Age Perfect range.
With 50 dubbed the new 40, women in the post-children stage of life are far from washed up and, as 17 per cent of the world's population, are a demographic to be taken seriously.
With each new company in the notoriously youth-centric universe of fashion and beauty that shows the courage to look beyond self-imposed boundaries, and acknowledge that older woman deserve to be treated with respect, all women will be better served.
Men have always been allowed to age with grace, and finally women are afforded the same chance, too.
