Take note, Anna Wintour (and most fashion editors for that matter!): I’ll be buying a copy of German Vogue this month, even though I won’t be able to understand much of the text. Why?
Because Tina Turner, their gorgeous, accomplished cover model, has at least four decades on the typical face on the front of the vast majority of women’s magazines.
It’ll be the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll's first time on the cover of Vogue, and yes, of course, Turner’s officially the oldest person to do such a thing -- though you might remember last year’s 62-year-old U.S. Vogue cover girl ...
Meryl Streep! Yet another American "queen," Streep became Vogue’s then-oldest cover girl in January 2012. Shot by Annie Leibovitz, Streep looked both ravishing AND her age (more or less) in the photos, and for that I tip my hat to Wintour (not that she cares about my surely pedestrian headwear).
Though there have been a few notable "older" women on U.S. Vogue’s cover (like Michelle Obama in March 2009, at the ripe old age of 45; and a 47-year-old Madonna in August 2005), like the Streep cover, the median age of cover models since 2000 was 30. A more typical example would be someone like Rooney Mara or even Lady Gaga.
Now, 30 of course is considered ancient to anyone under 22, but in reality, 30 is a spring chicken! Thirty does NOT herald the beginning of the end of attractiveness and desirability, as our modern, youth-obsessed culture would make it seem: a destructive, depressing notion that cover girls like Meryl Streep and Tina Turner BLAST away.
Turner makes an ideal Vogue cover: she’s stylish, fascinating, accomplished, and beautiful -- the only thing that sets her apart from most fashion mag cover ladies are a few extra decades' worth of aging. Wearing a silk blue Armani dress, red lips, and her famous blond hair, Turner of course looks amazeballs on the cover; or, as they declare, "Simply the best!"
I don’t even care that it’s surely been Photoshopped, or that her hair is obviously not naturally that color (still? ever?). I understand that fashion is aspirational, and a certain amount of magic and art goes into looking gorgeous, in person and in print.
The point is that she’s THERE, she looks fab. I wish we would see more covers like that, and not just in some hokey annual "FABULOUS AT ANY AGE" issue, when they trot out well-preserved celebs as examples of how even old fogies in their 40s, 50s, and -- gasp! -- 60s can still be attractive.I don’t even care that it’s surely been Photoshopped, or that her hair is obviously not naturally that color (still? ever?). I understand that fashion is aspirational, and a certain amount of magic and art goes into looking gorgeous, in person and in print.
I’ll definitely get my hands on a copy of this magazine, if only so I can leave it around my house in the hopes that my 9-year-old daughter will spot it. What a great visual reminder -- for both of us -- that beauty doesn't end at ANY decade. It doesn't have to do with how old you are at all.
Do you think more magazines should put older women like Tina Turner on their covers?
Image via German Vogue
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