Daphne Self (who???) was a model. About 70 years ago. She then came out of retirement at 70 to model some old things. Shrouds. Widow-wear. I don’t know. But she’s a lovely woman, now 87 and I think has a future, even now, playing Dracula’s grandma in the next Bram Stoker offering.

But Daphne has been fiercely critical of today’s models. That they lack ‘poise and decorum’ and, basically, that they pout around, unsmilingly, like some bunch of drug-addicted, chain-smoking anorexic sluts all too eager to fondle and lick each other in public.

Can’t argue with that.

Daphne’s memories of modelling in the 50s were of smiling, of having thighs that actually met in the middle, with barely a tattoo in sight and ne’er a contact between tongues in the obligatory faux-lesbian pose. They projected happy, demure and probably submissive. In a way that all women were pretty submissive back ‘in the day’.

And there’s where poor old Daph has it a bit wrong. She’s trying to take social and cultural context out of modelling.

Models are fantasy figures for both sexes. Women want to look like them and men just want them. Preferably all of them. Together. And that’s fine. Job done. But the role of women has changed over the 50 year hiatus of Daphne’s career. Feminism arrived. Equality flourished, ‘laddsim’ affected women in both good and bad ways. And most importantly, women became empowered to the extent that they’re allowed to have their own fun. With or without men. They no longer have to ask permission to go out. Unless they’re in Saudi Arabia. They can get drunk, and should be encouraged to do so at every opportunity. They are free.

Daphne’s memories (and the ‘old days’ are always ‘better’ because we only remember the good bits, particularly when you get to 87 and the old memory starts to… err… what was I saying?) are of a different time of society. When women stayed at home all day just so they could look beautiful when their husbands returned from work, greeting him with a whisky, pipe and slippers.

Cara wouldn’t do that. She’d either be out being hipsterish or she’d be licking his sister’s armpits. Times change. Models reflect. The young women of Daphne’s day wanted nothing more than to please their husbands. Today they want to please themselves.

So yes, keep modelling smutty.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx