You’ve probably seen her silhouette and long silver hair on the catwalks and in major brand campaigns. Her name is Caroline Ida Ours, a sixty-something who changed her life a few years ago and now campaigns for the visibility of women over 50. Portrait.
A noticeable presence
The Darjeeling campaign, for which she posed au naturel, attracted a lot of attention. From the most enthusiastic to the most hateful comments, it certainly didn’t leave anyone indifferent. As she herself admits, Caroline Ida Ours “doesn’t really have the physique that lingerie houses might ask for”. At 62, the model exposes herself with cellulite, belly fat and back fat, which she says she has no problem showing, despite the risks she takes of receiving nasty feedback. But she does it as a militant act.
Indeed, she turned to modeling 4 years ago now, launching herself into castings as she approached sixty, an age when we start to become invisible in the eyes of society. And while her children initially found it hard to accept her new career, they are now very proud of their mother.
Caroline Ida Ours’ blog at the origin of all this
Caroline Ida Ours began by launching a blog in which she gives advice on make-up, styling and, of course, well-being. She also tackles subjects such as menopause and her love affair with a man 20 years younger than her. This blog gave rise to a book entitled ” Génération silver. Sans tabous ni limites “, published by Kiwi in April 2021.
Showing nature
The woman who now describes herself as a “sexygenarian” had a revelation of sorts. After working for a long time in her family’s sporting goods business, she suffered a ruptured aneurysm at the age of 57. She says she “almost died”. From that point onwards, a real awakening took place. When she woke up from her coma, she realized that she had to do something for herself.
This new career quickly took off, with photo shoots following on from the blog, then photo shoots for the Maison Louve brand, of which she became the muse, and fashion shows… She also quickly became part of the body positive movement, with a desire to show herself as she is, with her flaws. And she’s delighted to receive so many messages from women telling her they’re no longer afraid of aging, thanks to her. But she also gets a lot of nasty comments from other women, which makes her angry (but not hurt), and she regrets the lack of sisterhood.
Body positive figure
For the past 4 years, she has been taking part in a parade of curvaceous people and atypical models at the Trocadéro. At first, she thought it would be a one-off event, but was surprised by the scale it has grown to every year. It has to be said that the body positive movement is gaining ground. Many brands are starting to take an interest and are choosing to show more diversity in their models.
We’re also seeing less photoshop retouching on fashion photos, and influencers are daring to show themselves more and more au naturel, to encourage other women to do the same. Caroline isn’t fooled, however, and knows full well that there’s a certain marketing spin to it all, but she prefers to see the positive side: visibility.
Silver attitude by Caroline Ida Ours
But her most important battle is that of the visibility of people over 50, also known as Silver. She realized that she didn’t see any of these people in society (no representation in magazines or cinema), with a few rare exceptions. Worse still, when advertising did feature people in this age bracket, it was to talk about health problems. So she decided that something had to be done to break this invisibility. And so began her battle.
“We often forget that life can stop at any moment, that it’s a blessing to grow old. But when you get older, you don’t really have any reference points, so it’s a bit scary. The women’s press doesn’t talk about us. At best, they’ll show us Jane Fonda. I love her, but I don’t identify with her, I’m a 44.”
The sixty-something is now proud to represent a “normal” woman with whom we want to identify. With her pep and naturalness, she is an excellent representative of this “silver” generation that we want to see represented more often.
