Ageing With Attitude: Grey is the new black for women of all ages
IT was 10 years ago in her role as the fictional editor of a New York glossy magazine that actress Meryl Streep, in the film The Devil Wears Prada, flaunted her perfect platinum hairdo.
It gave her character — the stylish and demanding Miranda Priestly — a distinctive look and in the eyes of the fashionistas, in the real world, a seal of approval for going grey.
But although there may not be 50 shades of grey hair, there may be 50 ways that it can look on a woman; in Streep’s character’s case, with a posse of stylists at her Manolo heels, stunning.
It’s far more common for us ordinary mortals to dye our hair, generally out of vanity, having inherited the mass belief that it’s “more ageing” to go with nature’s way.
Some women have never given a damn and proudly embraced their look. The respected British TV historian Professor Mary Beard is in that tribe.
Having being launched in front of the cruel public eye for the BBC Two programme Meet The Romans With Mary Beard, in 2012, TV viewers reacted to her long grey hair by calling her “a witch”, she revealed two weeks ago.
But she has held her ground and it’s appropriate that the 61-year-old academic applied her sharp mind to presenting a BBC Radio 4 programme last Friday called Glad To Be Grey, part of which investigated why women obsess about the issue.
From a branding perspective however, going grey got an über cool facelift last year with youthful mega stars like Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Kylie Jenner among those dying their locks, suggesting that grey was the new black.
While they may have been playing around with their crowning glories, those images arguably drove home the message that silver can be an ageless style, even a distinctive fashion look.
Apart from that however, the fashion and beauty industry has in recent years been trying to engage older customers — ‘baby boomers’, who are disenchanted with dewy youthful models selling to them — by embracing ‘real’ ageing women in their campaigns.
While many high-profile woman opt to colour their hair, it was interesting that last year Joan Didion, was chosen as a new face for the Céline campaign and musician Joni Mitchell for Saint Laurent, both poster ‘girls’ for grey, with their chic coiffeurs.
For grey-haired women the emphasis is now on the cut and style, the colours that help co-ordinate the look and the make-up that works with metallic silver or white.
But for women who want to ditch the dye, it’s still a daunting prospect, especially as they ‘transition’ from growing out their permanent colour. For many they have no idea whatsoever what their ‘natural’ look is.
Aside from using a trusted hair stylist — or indeed for the brave, who go it alone — there is lots of support online, with video tutorials and social media sites devoted to offering advice and ordinary women posting photos of their before-and-after looks to various ‘communities’.
There are several books also on the market.
In the promotional video for The Going Gray Beauty Guide, a book which features “50 grays going gray stories” the voiceover says that “a new age of grey is happening now” and that this hue is “the now colour”.
Hashtags such as #graylicioushair, #gorgeousgrays, and #hairenvy elevate the silver look into a stylish platform that suggest we are moving further from its negative ageist connotations.
As icons on the world stage we have figures like 60-year-old Frenchwoman Christine Lagarde, the MD for the International Monetary Fund, with her chic white crop, while Hillary Clinton’s meticulously coiffed dyed blonde locks continue to be part of her image, as a Democratic nominee in the American Presidential race.
Jayne Mayled, 57, who created her own hair products when she turned grey and features them on her White Hot hair Facebook page says: “Grey hair used to be associated with ‘letting yourself go’ but times have changed. We need to think about grey as just another colour choice.”
And although it’s a first world issue, therein lies the real change; grey is becoming an acceptable choice. The fashion and beauty world has given its imprimatur — arguably a powerful political message about image and age.
Some men see things as they are and say why — I dream things that never were and say why not
How to live passionately, no matter your age http://bit.ly/1qyS99t
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