The Original Selfe
Perfect posture, exquisite cheekbones, a way with clothes and long, flowing locks are hardly unusual stipulations for a top model. But what sets this model apart is that the mane of hair cascading down her ramrod-straight back is not golden, auburn, raven or even brunette – but shimmering silver. And far from hiding it, Daphne Selfe has built a (second) career out of a hairstyle once considered the preserve of doddering old grandmothers.
Now aged 87, Daphne is the world’s oldest working fashion model. Just 17 years ago, at an age when most of her contemporaries were winding down their working lives, she returned to a profession she had briefly dallied with as a young woman. Today she counts Dolce & Gabbana, fashion bible Vogue and skincare giant Olay amongst her clients and travels the globe on modelling assignments with photographers such as Royal favourite Mario Testino. She sums up her go-getting attitude to life and age, by saying: ‘I keep thinking, when I get old… but so far I haven’t got old.’
In fact, along with magazine covers, sashaying down the runway in cutting-edge designer outfits and fronting a slew of advertising campaigns, Daphne has recently added author to the list of things she has achieved in her ninth decade. Her book, The Way We Wore: A Life In Clothes, was published this summer and charts Daphne’s love affair with the garments that would one day make her a household name – or at least face.
Born in north London in 1928 to Francis Selfe, a schoolmaster at Ludgrove prep, and his striking young wife Irene, Daphne enjoyed a privileged and glamorous childhood. Irene, although a housewife, was a great beauty, a keen hostess, and the sisterin- law of celebrated cartoonist and illustrator William Heath Robinson. The family had servants, a large Victorian house in the Home Counties and Irene often travelled to London for parties. Neighbours included the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton who used to come for tea, and Sir Malcolm McAlpine, the building-industry giant, was another regular guest.
At one family soirée a director friend told Irene that the already engagingly pretty Daphne could be the next Shirley Temple, but as Daphne recalls: ‘Mummy didn’t like that.’ Instead young Daphne attended boarding school and indulged her passion for horses (she was taught to ride by Vincent Francis, father of jockey turned novelist Dick).
When she left school she took various temporary jobs and it was while working in the fashion department of John Lewis in Reading (then called Heelas) that she was persuaded to enter a modelling com- petition, which she won. She featured on the cover of The Reading & Berkshire Review and the photographer, Gilbert Adams, who had taken informal images of the Royal Family, taught her how to pose in front of the camera. ‘Obviously I wore the clothes fairly well, and the girls said: “Why don’t you come to our agency and learn?” In those days you did three weeks training, so off I went.’
Back then, in the 1940s, models did their own hair and make-up and earnings were nothing like the £1,000 a day Daphne is rumoured to command today, but she enjoyed the work that crucially her mother Irene approved of, deeming it ‘less dangerous’ than working with horses. She only gave up when she married Jim, a television stage manager and electrician, in 1954 and had three children.
Curious by nature, and ‘not keen on sitting still’, Daphne took up ballet, touring briefly with a company, and also worked as an extra in television, but had no initial plans to return to modelling. The industry had moved on and at 5ft 7in, weighing 10st and describing herself as ‘a big strapping horsey girl’, her looks were no longer those coveted by a business that moved on to waifs like Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton.
In fact the second phase of her career came about almost by accident. At the age of 60 she had stopped dyeing her hair, exhausted after caring for Jim who had by then passed away after a series of strokes. Lonely and at a low ebb, Daphne continued to work as a TV extra to keep busy.
When she was 70 an agent invited Daphne to do London Fashion Week for edgy label Red Or Dead. The show proved a sensation and celebrated photographer Nick Knight photographed her for a Vogue feature on ageing. A fortnight later, Models 1 signed her up. If the fashion world was surprised, Daphne, who has worked virtually non-stop, was not. ‘The world is getting older. People over 60 are retiring, they have more money than they used to have and they take more care of themselves. They want to see fashion on older people,’ she says.
Nevertheless, few of us would pose in a corset at the age of 83, as Daphne did for an Oxfam campaign, so what is her secret? She confesses to loving her food, but eats healthily, little and often. She refuses, however, to eat anything out of a packet, cooks from scratch, and warns other pensioners to eschew bungalows, by saying: ‘Going up and down stairs keeps me fit.’ She exercises most days, with a combination of walking, yoga and ballet and says a positive mindset and a curiosity about the world keep you young.
She likes to paint, garden and meet friends and certainly doesn’t want to have Botox. ‘A big smile is better than Botox.’ And the secret of her enduring good looks? ‘I cleanse my skin with rose water and use a little Nivea.’
The Way We Wore: A Life In Clothes, by Daphne Selfe (Macmillan, £16.99).
Now aged 87, Daphne is the world’s oldest working fashion model. Just 17 years ago, at an age when most of her contemporaries were winding down their working lives, she returned to a profession she had briefly dallied with as a young woman. Today she counts Dolce & Gabbana, fashion bible Vogue and skincare giant Olay amongst her clients and travels the globe on modelling assignments with photographers such as Royal favourite Mario Testino. She sums up her go-getting attitude to life and age, by saying: ‘I keep thinking, when I get old… but so far I haven’t got old.’
In fact, along with magazine covers, sashaying down the runway in cutting-edge designer outfits and fronting a slew of advertising campaigns, Daphne has recently added author to the list of things she has achieved in her ninth decade. Her book, The Way We Wore: A Life In Clothes, was published this summer and charts Daphne’s love affair with the garments that would one day make her a household name – or at least face.
Born in north London in 1928 to Francis Selfe, a schoolmaster at Ludgrove prep, and his striking young wife Irene, Daphne enjoyed a privileged and glamorous childhood. Irene, although a housewife, was a great beauty, a keen hostess, and the sisterin- law of celebrated cartoonist and illustrator William Heath Robinson. The family had servants, a large Victorian house in the Home Counties and Irene often travelled to London for parties. Neighbours included the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton who used to come for tea, and Sir Malcolm McAlpine, the building-industry giant, was another regular guest.
At one family soirée a director friend told Irene that the already engagingly pretty Daphne could be the next Shirley Temple, but as Daphne recalls: ‘Mummy didn’t like that.’ Instead young Daphne attended boarding school and indulged her passion for horses (she was taught to ride by Vincent Francis, father of jockey turned novelist Dick).
When she left school she took various temporary jobs and it was while working in the fashion department of John Lewis in Reading (then called Heelas) that she was persuaded to enter a modelling com- petition, which she won. She featured on the cover of The Reading & Berkshire Review and the photographer, Gilbert Adams, who had taken informal images of the Royal Family, taught her how to pose in front of the camera. ‘Obviously I wore the clothes fairly well, and the girls said: “Why don’t you come to our agency and learn?” In those days you did three weeks training, so off I went.’
Back then, in the 1940s, models did their own hair and make-up and earnings were nothing like the £1,000 a day Daphne is rumoured to command today, but she enjoyed the work that crucially her mother Irene approved of, deeming it ‘less dangerous’ than working with horses. She only gave up when she married Jim, a television stage manager and electrician, in 1954 and had three children.
Curious by nature, and ‘not keen on sitting still’, Daphne took up ballet, touring briefly with a company, and also worked as an extra in television, but had no initial plans to return to modelling. The industry had moved on and at 5ft 7in, weighing 10st and describing herself as ‘a big strapping horsey girl’, her looks were no longer those coveted by a business that moved on to waifs like Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton.
In fact the second phase of her career came about almost by accident. At the age of 60 she had stopped dyeing her hair, exhausted after caring for Jim who had by then passed away after a series of strokes. Lonely and at a low ebb, Daphne continued to work as a TV extra to keep busy.
When she was 70 an agent invited Daphne to do London Fashion Week for edgy label Red Or Dead. The show proved a sensation and celebrated photographer Nick Knight photographed her for a Vogue feature on ageing. A fortnight later, Models 1 signed her up. If the fashion world was surprised, Daphne, who has worked virtually non-stop, was not. ‘The world is getting older. People over 60 are retiring, they have more money than they used to have and they take more care of themselves. They want to see fashion on older people,’ she says.
Nevertheless, few of us would pose in a corset at the age of 83, as Daphne did for an Oxfam campaign, so what is her secret? She confesses to loving her food, but eats healthily, little and often. She refuses, however, to eat anything out of a packet, cooks from scratch, and warns other pensioners to eschew bungalows, by saying: ‘Going up and down stairs keeps me fit.’ She exercises most days, with a combination of walking, yoga and ballet and says a positive mindset and a curiosity about the world keep you young.
She likes to paint, garden and meet friends and certainly doesn’t want to have Botox. ‘A big smile is better than Botox.’ And the secret of her enduring good looks? ‘I cleanse my skin with rose water and use a little Nivea.’
The Way We Wore: A Life In Clothes, by Daphne Selfe (Macmillan, £16.99).