Thank you Mr. Jacobs

Picking up a fashion magazine has always been one of my very favorite leisure reads, so last week I went to the newsstand to feed my need. I was scanning the covers looking for something that would speak to me, the Generation Jones woman, and aside from More Magazine, which I love love by the way, there was virtually nothing fashionista for me. No true fashion rag that embraced the 40+ marketplace. Magazines are not the only place women of a certain age are underrepresented. Lately I’ve been bombarded with the age thing. My TV trade pubs consistently tout headlines of networks successfully skewing their demos YOUNGER. The job requests I might be suited for sent by my casting service, sets the age line of demarcation for commercial and film work at 40 and for the most part the work appears to stop dead at 45 years old.  Is that a woman’s “sell by date”? Are Gen Jones women superfluous?

Thanks to Marc Jacobs, I found a ray of hope. Perhaps the rest of the world will take note. Irrefutably the most influential American designer Jacobs presented his fall 2010 collection in Paris last week with a of cast models that were diverse in age, shape, and ethnicity. From the Guardian: “Designers are always talking about how they design for women, and then you look at our runways and there no girls over 20,” said Marc Jacobs, the American designer of Louis Vuitton, backstage after his blockbuster catwalk show in Paris today. “This time, I set out to cast a variety of sexy women – younger, older, thin, voluptuous, from every ethnic background.” Among the line up was 47-year-old Elle MacPherson.

Francisco Costa, creative director for the Calvin Klein Collection hired 44-year-old gray-haired Kristen McMenamy, and soon to be 40-year-old Stella Tennant. Finally the fashion world is truly speaking to us and embracing the beauty of mature, or as they call us in the fashion world, “Classic women”.  We have a penchant for wanting to look fabulous and our eagerness to open our Birken bags to buy their sellable goods is viable.  ”The woman who puts my clothes on needs a certain level of sophistication,” says Costa. “We wanted to acknowledge women who have always worn our clothes, women with their own identities, have full lives, have kids.” It’s about time!

Generation Jones is currently the largest adult segment of this nations population, totaling 53 million people. A full 40% of Gen Joneser households have incomes of $100,000 or more, spend $2500 or more on-line, 37% paid more than $35,000 for a vehicle and almost half our population travel for business.  It is time for more marketing executives to realize the viability of our generation and address us first person. We don’t have one foot in the grave, we want to enjoy life and we want products and services that address our needs. Most of all we like to see us doing the things we want to do, wearing the clothes we want to wear and we WILL spend the cash on ourselves to look good and feel good.