50 is the new 40

50 is the new 40

Turning five-zero can be fab, says Claire O'Mahony

Celebrities are embracing it, so why can't ordinary women embrace it too?

Jerry Hall, face of Chanel

Jo Woods, modelling for Vivienne Westwood,

Kim Cattrall: "I had a great time in my youth and I still feel youthful. But I've no desire to look as though I'm in my 20s. I don't think I'd try plastic surgery. I'd be too frightened I'd end up not looking like myself. I don't want to look in the mirror and see the Joker from Batman."

Sharon Osbourne: "Our youth may be behind us but at fifty, we're not the has-beens our mothers were."

Marie Helvin: "My livelihood depends on my surface beauty, but when I wash my face I see a real person there. I don't see somebody that's thinking, 'Oh my God, I'm 56, everything's crumbling.' I don't believe women want to have that facelift look."

Sharon Stone: "You should realise how lucky you are when you have a wrinkle. That means you are alive. That means you have laughed and cried, you have emotions because someone cares about you and you care about someone. When you have time to look in the mirror – that's extra time, use it wisely."

Michelle Pfeiffer: Found 50 liberating

Helen Mirren: "When you're 16, you think 28 is so old! And then you get to 28 and it's fabulous. You think, then, what about 42? Ugh! And then 42 is great. As you reach each age, you gain the understanding and experience you need to deal with it and enjoy it."

Kim Basinger: "I don't have a thing about sexiness at any age. I think the Europeans taught me more about that than anything in the world. They have a great appreciation of sex, and sex symbols, and they taught me not to be ashamed of it."

Melanie Griffith: "I feel much better now than I ever did in my life. But people are not used to seeing an older woman on screen, unless she's playing a character role. Why can't they make a movie about a woman who's 45 who's falling in love or getting divorced? Why does the leading role always have to be a woman who's 23 or 28?"

Want to validate a trend that can't really be quantified a fact? Declaring it 'the new' something always works. Whether that's 'grey is the new black', 'staying in is the new going out' or 'random is the new order' (as Apple marketed its iPod shuffle), it gives it a gravity, without having to get bogged down in hard stats. The latest one is age-related. When Jennifer Aniston celebrated her 40th birthday recently, guests ate and drank from plates and crystal glasses jokily engraved with "40 is the new 30". But 40 hardly constitutes being over the hill from anyone's perspective. Far more interesting is that even bigger milestone, 50, now being redefined as an era where you can be as fabulous, sexy and relevant as you ever were, and even more so. Fifty, it would appear, isn't just the new 40; it's the new everything.

There are multiple celebrity role models to take example from. Jerry Hall is currently sizzling as the face of Chanel – Marie Helvin (56) fronts Marks and Spencer's new Portfolio line. The irrepressible Jo Woods, whose husband Ronnie supplanted her with a 20-year-old younger model, looked amazing as she took to the catwalk at a recent Vivienne Westwood show. The perennially beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer maintains that 50 isn't the new 40 but the new 30. "If you think hitting 40 is liberating, wait until you hit 50," she says. "I was surprised at how liberating it was and I think it's because, as with everything, the anticipation of turning that big number looming over you, you actually turn it and go, 'Oh. Was that it?'"

Then there's Madonna of course. Whatever preconceptions you might have about reaching half a century, the Material Girl destroys them completely, showing off her extremely buff body in a provocative (even for Madonna) bondage shoot, complete with thigh-high white boots and white fishnets. She is also allegedly dating a 22-year-old Brazilian model, Jesus Luz, after divorcing Guy Ritchie. Madonna's not everyone's idea of how to grow old gracefully, or even disgracefully, but she certainly serves as the ultimate example of how age doesn't have to pigeonhole a woman.

Fifty is a new chapter and not the beginning of a decline as it traditionally was. "The idea of being dowdy and 50 and irrelevant at 60 is out of date, says Melanie Morris, editor of Image magazine. "We're staying in the present longer as human beings. We're vital for longer, we're needed for longer and we interact with society for longer." Image's average reader is 33 and some 25% of readers are 50-plus. Morris thinks women have become more versatile in terms of age. She uses her own mother as an example. "When she was coming up to her 60th birthday, she kept saying, 'Once I hit 60 I'm going to relax it a bit', and we've passed 60 and she hasn't let go. If women are interested in things like fashion, beauty, arts and current affairs, there's no reason that just because they reach a certain age they disassociate from them."

What's notable about the rise of the new fabulous 50s is that it was a previously unchampioned age group; it's not marked by significant events like retirement. Unlike the 60-plussers, who are represented by groups which rallied for 'grey power', this was the no-woman's land in terms of age, but all has changed in recent years. In the US, for example, the non-profit organisation AARP aims at helping the over-50s improve their lives;
it has 40 million members. Its magazine puts Jamie Lee Curtis on the cover and focuses on issues such as employment and dating. There are also myriad websites
for people in their 50s, such as www.fiftyisthenewforty.net. In the UK, there's Saga magazine, whose current issue features an interview with Tina Turner and asks, "What's age got to do with it?" Journalist and broadcaster Janet Street Porter is a fan. "As a target reader," she has said, "can I make a loud and determined plea for the over-50s to be allowed, and even encouraged, to grow old disgracefully, to drink, take drugs, be childish and self-indulgent, wear unsuitably youthful and fashionable clothes and to loathe pets, stair lifts, chintz furnishing fabrics and horribly practical Rohan clothing?" she ranted in her column in the London Independent.

Celebrities aside, ordinary women in their 50s are enjoying the liberty that comes with being a member of this newly defined age group. Roseanne Smyth (55), a former air hostess with Aer Lingus, took early redundancy and now works as a Montessori teacher. "It's an interesting time because you have to reinvent yourself," she says. "I'd worked for 33 years and I was almost institutionalised but I've lots of life left in me yet. I've time to play golf and bridge is my 'new 50 thing'." As a divorced woman, however, she doesn't think there's much out there for her socially. "We're not really catered for. What do you do? Go into the Shelbourne on a Friday night? As a single woman at 50, you're not really invited to dinner parties and you miss that."

Ailish Reynolds (52) is honest about how she felt turning 50. "It was horrible. I hated it, but to be honest, not so much as I hated turning 40. Fifty sounds a bit fat but 40 sounded like crimpolenes and cardigans," she sighs before conceding, "It's not so bad but you do hate being the 'old person' in the corner at parties. You want to say, 'Hello! I'm not invisible.'" Reynolds is conscious of how things have changed since her own mother was in her 50s. "I remember as a child looking at women who went to mass on Sundays, wearing long black coats and shoes and dresses, and they were probably only in their 50s. It's easier to keep abreast of fashion now, even allowing for middle-aged spread." But that's a mixed blessing, she says. "You have to work harder to be youthful and you spend your life looking at diets and tights that shape everything. There was a time when you could sit at home and have grey hair, but I don't know if there ever comes a time now when you're ready to 'let yourself go'."

So does your average 50-year-old woman find Madonna inspirational? No, says Smyth. "Women like Liz O'Donnell are role models because they're successful, glamorous and down to earth." Definitely not, says Ailish Reynolds. "[Madonna] looks a bit desperate. She's trying too hard. Put on our trousers and go home – I've had enough of the crotch shots."

If 50 is now about looking better,
maybe more importantly it's about feeling more comfortable with yourself. "You just feel more confident as a person. I can walk into a pub if I like. I can complain in a shop if I like and feel entitled to make this complaint," explains Reynolds.

There's also that wonderful sense of perspective. "It's a cliché but you don't get upset about things that don't really matter," says Reynolds. "The house is upside down but there are more important things – reading a good book, having a long chat on the phone, going on a great holiday. The kitchen will always be there."

March 1, 2009