Brooke Shields is making waves for posing topless at 56 for Jordache’s Spring 2022 campaign. In an interview to People magazine, she appears even more gorgeous for talking about her ageing body and accepting it. Her photographs were not retouched for the jeans campaign.

Her body has always been on display, in a way, from the time she was a child — though a body double had apparently done the nude scenes for her in The Blue Lagoon — and it is good to see it age and be celebrated still.

“I…knew it wouldn’t be exploiting at all,” Shields said. “There’s something about owning your sexuality at this age that is on point for where we are today. It’s not angry empowerment.”

Shields said that she increased her time at the gym in preparation: “I worked so hard with my trainer Ngo Okafor. We did 5am workouts, but I wasn’t drinking, so it was easier to wake up in the morning. I pushed it to the limit. My ego helped! I thought, if you do these pictures and you are not happy with what you see, you’ll be hard on yourself.”

With age, from Pretty Baby one can turn into an astounding woman.

Filter it

Maybe a filter women can always use, including when it comes to fashion, is the one that checks internalised misogyny, the widespread phenomenon that makes women reiterate patriarchy’s prejudices to one’s own self and other women.

One good test is what women think of other women who wear “revealing clothes”. Is it right to assume that a woman in a micro-mini is doing it for the men? Maybe not. Maybe she is just doing it for herself.

Fashion, like cooking, is not only done for men by women. Dressing up can be about a deep pleasure that has nothing to do with men. Or for that matter, anyone else.

Beauty — and fashion — can survive without the male gaze. A woman in a mini may care for more than a man.