Elle Macpherson on the red carpet in London - apparently, it's not about the mini, it's about the kneecaps. (Getty pic)
Once again the old double standards are in play when it comes to women of a certain age and how they should dress.
The woman otherwise known as The Body has been slagged off in the British press by a female columnist who disapproves of Elle’s kneecaps. My first thought was, ‘kneecaps? How granular can you get?’
According to Claudia Connell in London’s Daily Mail newspaper, Macpherson had committed the eighth deadly sin for women – she’s aged and she’s showing it.
The 46-year-old one-woman fashion industry turned up to a red carpet event wearing a gold mini-dress with one shoulder fetchingly exposed. It wasn’t the shoulder that got Connell going, though. It was the middle joints of her shapely legs.
“Unfortunately for her, the focus of attention was not her impossibly long legs or enviably trim bottom but the fact that her knees looked as though she’d spent the morning cleaning doorsteps and used a Brillo pad as an exfoliator,” Connell wrote. “At the age of 46, Elle has fallen victim to saggy knee syndrome, a cruel and distressing affliction that can randomly strike any woman over 40.”
65-year-old Keith Richards doing his best Johnny Depp impersonation
I’m not going to comment on Connell’s age or shape: it’s irrelevant.
Yet, there are plenty of women who bang on about the impossible pressure on women to look a certain way, have a certain body type, and Connell is adding another hyper-critical layer to the fraught body image issue.
So much for the sisterhood.
To my eyes, Elle looks sensational and at least she’s starting to show her age rather than be obsessed with transforming herself into a plastic fantastic freak show.
Here’s the other thing: men of a certain age don’t get bagged for looking ridiculous, or not dressing or acting their age.
Witness Keith Richards, 65, from The Rolling Stones in this shot here. What’s he doing – impersonating Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean? But will he be criticised? Forget it. The same standards do not apply to men.
It’s like the old geezers who get the young babes – plus a pat on the back and a wink and a nod. Older women who have younger male lovers get called “Cougars” and magazines treat them as freakish curiosities.
Elle on legs or Keith the pirate? You be the judge.
