Maryl poses: Should models be "ageless"?

Carmen Dell’Orefice:  Then and Now

"You can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older."
                                                                                   Anouk Aimee 


We second lifers already know this to be true. We’ve reconciled our laugh lines, fuller figures and speckled skin and moved on to focus and improve on our other virtues. But think of how hard this must be for aged-out models who made their living based solely on their looks. This topic is explored in HBO’s latest documentary, “About Face: The Supermodels, Then and Now,” that has its first airing this Monday, July 30, at 9PM east coast time after its premiere at Sundance this past winter.

Caryl agrees: Vive La Difference

Claude-Noelle Toly grew up in Dieu Le Fint, a tiny village in the South of France. At 21, she and her then boyfriend flew to the United States and began a hitchhiking trip that traversed the country. The boyfriend didn’t last but her romance with the U.S. did.  “I fell in love with America and Americans.  I felt so at home here,” she says.

Caryl considers: What We Have To Look Forward To

Bel Kaufman, who is 101, is a teacher, an author --she wrote her first novel, Up the Down Staircase, at 50 and the wife of a younger man (he's 95). I came across her profile in the August issue of Vogue, my favorite issue of the year because it's "the age issue".  Consider this month's cover line:  Wonder Women from 28 to 101.  The far end of that galaxy is Bel--and here's what she has to say in her own words about this stage of life:

Maryl relearns: How to Compute, easy as Apple pie

I finally made the change. After months and months of ruminating over whether to buy a new PC or switch to a MacBook Pro with the new retina display and solidstate hard drive, I bought an Apple. Having a second life is all about making transformations – big and small. Change starts to become more difficult as we move into and through our 20s and beyond. The good news is that of the Big Five Personality Categories, openness, in particular to new experiences, seems to pick up again about age 60 according to a Scientific American report.

Second Look: Sigourney Weaver

You probably don’t remember her in her first movie role in “Annie Hall”.  (She was Woody Allen’s date standing outside the movie theatre.) You probably didn’t relate to her in “Alien” (one, two, three or four.) You probably admired her as Dian Fossey in “Gorillas in The Mist”. You probably empathized with her as the sex-seeking/sex-escaping neighbor in “Ice Storm”. You probably hated her as everywoman’s nightmare boss in “Working Girl”. Despite more than 45 movie roles over her more than 35 year-long career --her most recent film as a psychologist studying paranormal activity in “Red Lights” opened this week-- and many turns on the stage including this fall's new Christopher Durang play, she has never acted on the small screen. At least not until this Sunday when she plays Elaine Barrish Hammond, a former First Lady now Secretary of State, a stern diplomatrix in Chanel sunglasses, as one critic described her real-life inspiration.

Maryl comes back: To the House Dress

The house dress is making a comeback and its second life is not happening soon enough. The number of women running around town in their pajama bottoms and sweaty workout clothes is reaching embarrassing proportions. The slim jeans and casual Friday looks are also rendering a rather monotonous fashion statement lately. Our mothers and grandmothers had it right even if the house dress was a domestic uniform of sorts back then and not meant to be worn on the street. Wearing one today would look not just retro but positively elegant, much more so than a pair of drawstring pants and a tee shirt.

A Tale of Two Femmes, a River and a Dream

Claude Noelle Toly, an ex-pat from a tiny village in the South of
France and proprietor of Le Fanion, a French art and antiques shop in Greenwich Village, likes to ride her bike up and down the Hudson River. Her father had taught her to swim as a young child, and she briefly swam competitively at boarding school until health problems sidelined her athletic career as a pre-teen. Four decades later, in her adopted country, she would gaze at the lordly Hudson River as she rode along the bike path and wish she could swim in its flowing waters. When she learned of a race around Liberty Island to be held June 29, 2012, Claude Noelle felt the time had come to follow her dream. She would swim the 1.2K race around the Statue of Liberty—a gift to the American people from the people of France. What could be more fitting!