Frances and Tineka. Older women have been overlooked by the industry, says agency founder Rebecca Valentine. Photo / Instagram.com/tinekajane
Frances and Tineka. Older women have been overlooked by the industry, says agency founder Rebecca Valentine. Photo / Instagram.com/tinekajane
Catwalks and ad campaigns are turning silver. Judith Woods talks to the woman who has just been spotted - at the age of 82.
Working in an industry obsessed with flawless youth, every model worth her salt has a tale to tell about how she was spotted out of the blue before she'd even sat her GCSEs. Kate Moss was famously discovered aged 14 at JFK airport. Gisele Bundchen was also 14 and midway through a McDonald's meal when her life changed forever.
And as for Frances Dunscombe? Well, her story is arguably the most extraordinary of all; the grandmother from Surrey was accompanying her daughter to a modelling agency when she caught the eye of the talent scout and found herself eagerly snapped up - at the age of 82.
Her daughter Tineka Fox, 56, a former full-time model, was also signed to the pioneering Grey Model Agency, which specialises in women who have lived a bit and have the laughter lines to prove it. And now both women have been launched as the faces of tomorrow - as well as of yesterday.
The Grey Model Agency, with its motto "representing the beautifully ageing mature model", is a brave and really rather savvy new pretender in the industry, having recognised the resonant truth of Coco Chanel's elegant edict: "After 40 nobody is young, but one can be irresistible at any age."
Frances is, indeed, irresistible. With an English rose complexion, the poise of an aristocrat and a lean willowy figure, it's difficult to believe she hasn't fibbed about her age by two decades. Upwards. She is firm about the fact that she has never been beautiful, but will admit to possessing a certain je ne sais quoi; a twinkly hint of Audrey Hepburn mischief, a graceful sense of movement, perhaps.
"I was attractive and I suppose vivacious," she muses. "I had an air of life about me that made me stand out a little from the crowd.
Clothes-wise, she was always fastidious about her appearance, but as far as a skincare regime went, she only started moisturising in her fifties; although, significantly, she always stayed out of the sun.
"I eat healthily, I stretch every morning, I dance alone in my bedroom - and I drink half a glass of red wine at lunchtime, which makes me feel awfully la vie en rose," she says with a laugh. "I can't afford to be lavish, so I try to make a bottle of organic Sainsbury's cabernet sauvignon last me a week."
Now is arguably the time to crack open the premier cru at the Grey Model Agency; founder Rebecca Valentine, who has signed up Sara Stockbridge, the former face of Vivienne Westwood, due to turn 50 this year, knows that there is money to be made from grown-up, grey models who are comfortable in their skin and happy with who they are.
"I used to have an extras agency and noticed that the older people were more in demand and making more money than the others put together," says Valentine.
"This age group has been completely overlooked by the industry - not just fashion and beauty, but more so in advertising. The older generations of women are represented either as blue-rinse old ladies in insurance adverts or completely eccentric characters, but that is changing."
Grey Model Agency has also signed up Sara Stockbridge, left, the former face of Vivenne Westwood (also pictured, right). Photo / Getty Images
Brands are now waking up to the fact that they have to be pro-ageing, rather than anti-ageing. Just as younger supermodels are becoming quirkier and more idiosyncratic - think Cara Delevingne's emphatic eyebrows or Georgia Jagger's tooth gap - and there's been a backlash against airbrushing, so the market in general is moving against perfection.
"This isn't only about showing wrinkles and grey hair, but about being true to the older age group, which is as diverse as any other," says Valentine.
Twiggy, now 65, has become synonymous with Marks & Spencer's. L'Oreal's brand ambassadors include Dame Helen Mirren, 69, and Jane Fonda, 75; they don't look young. They just look hot.
Cosmetics firm Nars has 69-year-old Charlotte Rampling on its books. Earlier this year, Selfridges in London wittily axed its annual Bright Young Things curtain-raiser in favour of a celebration of Bright Old Things.
And when Celine recently co-opted American writer Joan Didion as its star, the fashion house was feted for its "radical" understanding that beauty does not have be classical, nor passive, and that fierce hauteur born of rich experience can be every bit - in fact, even more - compelling than the blondeness and blandness of an off-the-peg ingenue.
Twiggy models for Marks & Spencer's at 65. While L'Oreal products are being endorsed by Helen Mirren and Jane Fonda. Photos / Getty Images
Tineka, who has modelled for names including Amanda Wakeley, and would love a Stella McCartney campaign, is blonde but far from bland. Quick-witted and humorous, she has inherited both her mother's sparkiness and her peaches-and-cream skin; the fact she too has kept out of the sun is a lesson for us all.
"My mother has always been elegant and funny and sparkles with joie de vivre; she really should have been an actress," she says, with pride. "She always looks terribly polished, and even though she buys all her clothes in charity shops she looks stunning."
Charlotte Rampling, left, and Joan Didion are both modelling for Nars and Celine, respectively. Photos / Getty Imafes
Frances (who has her sights set on Dior) was born in Streatham, south London, and left school at 15. She had always harboured a secret desire to be a ballerina, but trained as a typist, although she "loathed" typing. She later met Ralph, who was a member of the Stock Exchange, in a tearoom. After they married, she left work, as was the norm for women in that era.
The couple moved to Surrey where she had Tineka, her only child. "I wanted her to have a dramatic name because I imagined that she would surely be a performer and it would some day be up in lights," laughs Frances.
Tineka, who wasn't academic, left school at the age of 17 and attended the Lucy Clayton Finishing School for several months, before going into modelling full-time.
She was a showroom model for Ossie Clarke and a Badedas girl, her artfully draped back-view featuring in the "Things happen after a Badedas bath" campaign. There were also adverts for Topshop and Selfridges, and by the age of 21 she had achieved so many career ambitions that, having married, she started her family. Her oldest daughter, Charlotte, 34, works in television production; Jay, 31, works in finance; and Sophie, 23, started modelling at 13, but decided to put academia first. Having just graduated from university, she intends to try her hand as a model again; thinking every bit as couture as her mother and grandmother, Vivienne Westwood would be her label of choice.
"When the children were growing up, I dipped my toe into the modelling world from time to time," says Tineka, who is married to her second husband, Barrie, a former professional showjumper. "One reason was that I didn't like the idea of being the one sitting at home all day waiting for news of what they'd seen, and I wanted to have exciting news to tell them, too."
It doesn't get more off-the-scale exciting than Grandma taking to the catwalk and heading up a modelling dynasty in her eighties; the possibility of all three generations in a single campaign is surely an ad agency dream.
Frances has waited a long time for this chapter to begin. Her adored husband Ralph died of vascular dementia five years ago, after a slow decline. She nursed him until the end, but as she spent her subsequent days tending her cottage garden, she never lost her sunny optimism that life might yet hold another adventure.
"I always hoped something else would happen," she says. "All the same, I'm quite bewildered by events, in a nice way."
Grey is clearly having its fashion moment, but fashion, as we know, moves fast. Let's hope the vogue for mature beauty lasts a little longer than most; judging from Tineka's ambition and Frances's va-va-va-voom, this year's models have a great many miles on the clock yet.
