•Carmen Dell’Orefice
She started as a model at the age of 13, now at the age of 92, she is not ready to retire as she is still very active catwalking on the runway. He name is Carmen Dell’Orefice and she is known officially as the oldest working model in the fashion industry.
It was gathered that Carmen Dell’Orefice’s first contact with the fashion world was a flop. After being approached by the wife of photographer while riding a bus to ballet class when she was only 13 years old, she thought her test photos were going nowhere.
But she was destined for greatness, and just two years later, at the age of 15, according to odditycentral.com, she graced the cover of Vogue Magazine for the very first time, after becoming a favourite model of photographer, Erwin Blumenfeld.
Last year December, at the age 92, Carmen Dell’Orefice was featured on the cover of Vogue Czechoslovakia, this time as the oldest working model in the world.
•92-year-old model
Growing up in New York, United States, with her mother, Dell’Orefice didn’t have an easy chldhood. She had her family struggled financially, and she recalls being so malnourished that photographers had to pin back dresses and stuff the curves with tissue. They didn’t even have a telephone in the house, so Vogue had to send runners to summon her for shoots.
Her modeling work was hardly enough to support the family so she and her mother also worked as seamstresses to make ends meet.
Her personal life wasn’t a fairytale either. She married Bill Miles in the early 1950s, a man who exploited her career by picking up his wife’s modeling agency cheques, allowing her only $50 allowance from her earnings. They divorced and Carmen married photographer Richard Heimann, who left her after she decided to retire from modeling in 1958.
A precarious financial situation convinced Carmen Dell’Orefice to return to modeling in 1978, and in just a few years’ time, she was already gracing the covers of fashion magazines again. She has been working hard ever since, appearing in magazines, advertising campaigns and even climbing the catwalk for various fashion brands. She has been doing it all and despite being well into her pension years, she shows no sign of stopping.
In 2022, at the age of 91, Carmen Dell’Orefice stripped naked for a risqué photoshoot, and last year, she graced the cover of several fashion magazines, including Vogue Czechoslovakia, L’Officiel India, and Schön China. She continues to prove that age is just a number and that some people really do age like wine. She will clock 92 on June 3, 2024.
