The Prime Book

 

The Prime Book

This year French fashion house Celine set the Internet abuzz with the release of its spring 2015 print campaign.  The ads quickly went viral, blazing a path across Instagram, Twitter and the blogosphere before hitting The New Your Times, Forbes and The Atlantic.  At the center of all the attention was the face of the campaign: 80-year-old author Joan Didion.

Two days later, French luxury label Saint Laurent debuted another eye-catching ad featuring 71-year-old Joni Mitchell.  Not to be outdone, Kate Spade and jewelry designer Alexis Bitter rolled out campaigns featuring 93-year-old style legend Iris Apfel.  A short time later, L'Oreal announced that it had signed 65-year-old '60's icon Twiggy as its latest brand ambassador, going 69-year-old Helen Mirren.  

These are only the latest members of a sorority of senior being tapped by major brands with earlier trailblazers including Jessica Lange, 65 for Marc Jacobs Beauty: Charlotte Ramping 69, for Nars: Catherine Deneuve, 71 for Louis Vuitton: and Anjelica Huston, 63 for Gap.   The trend has led many to wonder whether the notoriously youth-obsessed world of fashion and beauty is finally accepting-even embracing- women of a certain age.

Four years in the making the Prime Book is available for purchase at theprimeboo.org 

The Prime book is a collection of over 80 stunning black and while portraits and essays that are a true celebration of women.  Each Woman, ranging in age from 35 to 104 was photographed without makeup and reproduced with no retouching or Photoshop alteration.  The book is a self-described labor of love for photographer for publications including The New York Times, Forbes, Esquire, Newsweek and Architectural Digest.  With a foreword by the American scholar and New York Times best selling author Brene Brown and an introduction by the founder of Philosophy Beauty, Christina Carlino, Prime includes over 84 never before published essays written by the subjects.  

Click here to find out more about The Prime Book.

  

 It’s been a bit of a tightrope walk raising two girls these last 23 years. Like many parents, I am particularly sensitive to the pressure my girls are subjected to in the media. Every day, young girls are exposed to images of women “perfected” with the help of technology. Advances in Photoshop regularly facilitate the elongation and general distortion of what is natural. This unrealistic form is consistently represented across almost all of media, with blemish-free, wrinkle-free, and even pore-free skin. It’s hard enough for growing girls to maintain a positive self-image without narrowing the scope of socially acceptable “beauty”. through manipulation.. The National Center for Biotechnology information concluded 50% of girls and young women are unhappy with the way they look. For years I photographed celebrities for magazine covers and features as well as movie posters and ads only to see the finished product highly altered from the original image.

  I realize through my photography assignments how far from reality the representation of today's female status symbols has become. This was the impetus behind a change I gradually made in my technique. I began to simplify the way I chose to light and compose my portrait work. Ultimately it was an early -2000 Harper's Bazaar feature of supermodels without make up that inspired my idea to create the prime book. I wanted to depict women in a positive authentic way. I chose to shoot in black and white in a fairly tight composition without any makeup, jewelry or retouching. I wouldn’t say I had to pry the mascara from their clenched fingers but it was not always easy. Over the next 4 years I photographed over 120 women from around the country from the age of 35 to 104. Each woman was asked to write an essay about what they thought it was to be in their prime. What followed was an facinating collection of stories celebrating personal milestones and professional achievements. The women’s essays are filled with the challenges life has thrown them and the choices they have made. All of the women who’ve participated in the book seemed to share an independent spirit that inspired their rejection of conventional definitions of womanhood while challenging accepted notions about aging. My hope was that readers would see the names, look into the faces, and hear in their own words details of the journey that has shaped these extraordinary women.