Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Kate Moss walk the runway for comeback appearances, but supermodel Elle Macpherson doesn’t need to take a single step. At 61, the woman dubbed “The Body” by Time magazine in 1986 is marking her territory by posing for a Bonds underwear campaign.
Last year, images of wildlife advocate Robert Irwin posing for Bonds caused a global social media sensation, leading to success on Dancing With The Stars in the United States. Irwin had a large snake and goanna for assistance. Macpherson has nothing but a smile, along with basic lace-trimmed bras and knickers.
“My inner flex is doing what feels right for me,” Macpherson says in a press release for the Bases Flex collection. “That cheeky, give-it-a-go Aussie attitude has been part of my career and life journey from the start, so flexing in my knickers for this Bonds campaign really resonated with me, and felt like something to truly celebrate.”
The poses and smile are muscle memory for Macpherson who rose from the modelling rank to super status in the ’80s by regularly posing in Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue, a cultural precursor to the Victoria’s Secret’s runway shows. Underwear, however, was where she built an empire through a 25-year association with Bendon that resulted in her name sharing space with Calvin Klein, in top drawers around the world until 2014.
Representatives for Bonds said the images of Macpherson and fellow Australian models Shanina Shaik and Jennifer Atilémile had received minimal digital adjustments, such as colour balancing and the removal of “any flyaways etc”.
It’s a gentle-touch approach advocated by former Estée Lauder supermodel Paulina Porizkova and actor Pamela Anderson, who have embraced more natural approaches to their professional appearance.
Sydney-based model and age-positive ambassador Nadine Bush, who has worked with Berlei, part of the US Hanes group which also owns Bonds, applauds the inclusive approach of the Macpherson campaign.
“It’s great to see the whole narrative around women’s underwear evolve from being a way to shape, mould and contort a woman’s body to look a certain way to satisfy the gaze of men, to letting us feel comfortable, supported, and free,” Bush says. “That’s when a woman’s inner beauty can radiate.”
However, it’s Macpherson’s outer beauty that could be a problem, according to Professor Bernardo Figueiredo, positive ageing lead at RMIT Centre for Organisation and Social Change.
In his report, Ageist marketing as systemic exclusion: towards a framework for age-inclusive marketing, released in December, Figueiredo challenges conditional inclusion, where older adults must embody youthful standards of beauty.
“Featuring a 61-year-old, well-known model such as Elle Macpherson can be a positive step,” Figueiredo says. “Older women are dramatically underrepresented in aspirational fashion advertising.
“The key question is whether campaigns like this genuinely expand the range of ageing identities we see as desirable, or whether they simply reposition youthfulness in older bodies.”
The Bonds Bases Flex collection will be available from February 16.
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