When you think about the campaigns of high-end luxury fashion houses, you’re likely wondering which glamorous celebrity or movie star has lent her face to the promotional ads. Maybe Kim Kardashian? Margot Robbie? Nicole Kidman? Maggie Smith? Wait, Maggie Smith? Yes, you’ve read that correctly. The Spanish luxury fashion house Loewe has just made 88-year-old Dame Maggie Smith (of Harry Potter and Downton Abbey fame) the lead face of their Spring/Summer 2024 Pre Collection campaign. Unlike the supermodels of the 1990s whose fame has been captured in a new documentary, Maggie Smith appears completely unretouched and unairbrushed, with her gloriously expressive and lined face appearing in luxury high-fashion outfits and clutching expensive handbags. You can see photos of this campaign, along with other older celebrity models in their campaigns, here.

Is this an outlandish gimmick or is it a groundbreaking trend? Apparently, post-Covid, older models are once again being used in promotional campaigns. Other gorgeous older women, including Charlotte Rampling and Mary Berry (of The Great British Bake Off series), are also appearing in high-end fashion campaigns. The fact that these faces are unexpected, even shocking, is precisely the point. It allows the images and the campaigns to stand out and be noticed, rather than relying strictly on the clothes to speak for themselves. That could be a gimmick and publicity trick- or it could be the beginning of normalizing an older face as an image of beauty and style. After all, many of the great designers making these clothes (Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Miuccia Prada) are well into their later years as well. One thing is clear from the fashion campaigns: Great style can be ageless, and the more we see interesting older women in glamorous fashion campaigns, the more normal it may feel and become.

If we step off the high fashion pedestal, however, and back into the reality that most of us inhabit, there are more accessible fashion trends and colors that are being recommended for older women this fall. For example, Alyson Walsh, the fashion journalist behind the website That’s Not My Age recommends that we try to mix and match navy with conker brown this fall. AARP’s fall fashion post highlights such trends as wearing the color red, investing in some faux leather clothing, and putting on a swishy long skirt for some pizzazz. Finally, The Ethel also recommends you invest in some red while also endorsing the flat shoe look, including the once-again popular Mary-Jane style. Not something you typically associate with your later years, but perhaps that’s the whole point of fashion these days: nothing needs to be associated with a particular age. As Maggie Smith makes clear, age has nothing to do with fashion and style.