Hot mamas are selling like hot cakes. Once banished to ads for health remedies and life insurance, gorgeous women from decades past are back with a vengeance. Over the past year, an increasing number of ads and editorial spreads have featured a stunning 40-plus model paired with a younger male model. (Sometimes even a gaggle of them.)
“This has been a while coming,” says Jeffrey Buchman, a professor of advertising at FIT. “It used to be one of the real taboos in American culture for older women to be with a younger guy. It really wasn’t explored, unless of course the result of the union was misery for the women.
“What’s new [in these images] is that the woman is having fun. She’s not going to go to hell. She’s not going to lose her family or go to jail,” he adds. “You can see through advertising that there’s a growing acceptance of the concept of an older woman and a younger man.”
Seeing as she paved the way for the change in attitude, it’s only fitting that Demi Moore, 47, be one of the most visible. In the campaign for Helena Rubinstein’s fragrance Wanted, Moore makes eye contact with the camera while an anonymous male model, who appears at least a few years younger than her 31-year-old husband Ashton Kutcher, nuzzles her neck.
Madonna, 51, has a place in these pictorials, too. She met her 22-year-old boyfriend, Jesus Luz, on the set of a Steven Klein photo shoot for the March issue of W. The photos show her rolling around Luz on a bed and gazing at his bare torso while he stands in front of her.
Others in this new wave are supermodels of the past Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista and Jerry Hall. Jay Manuel, the creative director of “America’s Next Top Model” and a fashion correspondent from E!, is excited to see these classic models return.
“I’ve always thought women look more sophisticated and stunning after they hit the 30 point,” he says. “There’s this secret look of knowing something in their eyes, and [it] really engages the viewer. Younger models, the ones in their teens, they don’t really have that confidence and that life experience.”
Take Chanel, which tapped ’70s supermodel Hall, now 53, for its spring 2009 accessories catalog. The black-and-white images were shot by Karl Lagerfeld and have a distinct Mrs. Robinson flavor as Hall toys with model Baptiste Giabiconi, 19.
Steve Hall, an advertising expert and the editor of AdRants.com, finds this image subtly subversive. “It’s almost as if women are getting back at men for all the years they had the upper hand and woman were relegated to housewife status. Think of the ’60s-style model standing in front of a refrigerator in an ad,” he says. “Older men have been getting the hot young girl in the tight mini-dress for years. Why shouldn’t older women have a go at chiseled, six-packed young guys?”
While Giabiconi has been referred to as Lagerfeld’s new muse, Manuel thinks the pairing of famous female models with younger male models is generally more circumstantial.
“Modeling is the one industry where men don’t reign supreme. The women really command the top dollar,” Manuel says. “I don’t think anyone’s consciously saying, ‘Oh, let’s get a young guy and pair him with an older female.’ Younger male models are just the ones out there working.”
One of the top male models of the moment is Oriol Elcacho, 30, who appeared in a summer ad campaign for Bally handbags alongside Christy Turlington, almost 41. In the photo, Turlington lounges on the edge of a pool, her arm draped around Elcacho’s dripping wet, bare chest. The image, which depicts adoration more than lust, speaks to Linda Franklin, creator of TheRealCougarWoman.com and author of “Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am.”
“Women over 40 now have the buying power,” she says. “Companies are understanding that and want to appeal to us so we spend money on their products.”
Franklin also likes a photo of Linda Evangelista, 44, that appeared in the November issue of W magazine. In it, a group of young guys on a platform carries a regal, robe-covered Evangelista on their shoulders.
“She’s either a goddess or a saint. To me, women are goddesses, and men do appreciate sexy, confident, independent women,” says Franklin. “That’s part of this whole fantasy — that the younger guys are enamored with the older women.”
But Franklin isn’t as enthusiastic about a billboard for Dolce & Gabbana’s D&G Anthology fragrance that appeared this fall, featuring Naomi Campbell, 39, Claudia Schiffer, 39, and Eva Herzigova, 36, naked and draped around models Noah Mills, 24, Fernando Fernandes, 28, and Tyson Ballou, 33.
“These women are beautiful women, with great bodies,” Franklin says. “But why are they all naked? I don’t think it does a lot for women over 40 to think they have to take off their clothes to be noticed.”
Manuel, on the other hand, loves the grouping. “These are timeless faces. They show that women over 35 can be still be aspirational, sexy beauties. Gone are the days when if a woman has a child, we no longer look at her as a sexual being — all of these woman have had children. Men look at them and say, ‘Wow, that’s attractive.’ And women say, ‘That’s what I want to be.’”