NADIA SARWAR
Exit
zine Rikka and Canadian magazine
Fashion. But the last time she had
seriously modeled was in the late
‘60s while living in Italy to study
Italian. It was only in 2012, when
J.Crew asked Rodin to model in its
fall catalogue, that she came back
in front of the camera. “I always
feel like they’re using me as not
just a model, but someone with
something going on,” she said. “I’m
not just an old lady who they think
looks cute in clothes.”
It’s easy to make the argument
that a brand’s choice to cast an old-
AGING
er model is shtick, especially when
many models are actually under the
legal drinking age (and those who
aren’t are altered to look that way
via Photoshop). “I think the whole
culture’s screwed up,” Rodin said,
noting the irony. “They retouch
20-year-olds. I work with them,
and I see the pictures, and I know
that they’ve retouched this and that
and that and this. I just go, ‘She
doesn’t even have any wrinkles!’”
Fortunately, Rodin hasn’t succumbed to the pressure to look
younger unnaturally (though she
experimented with fillers and Botox
briefly). She’s never dyed her hair,
which went gray in her mid-30s,
HUFFINGTON
02.09.14
In the past
two years,
Rodin has
modeled for
J. Crew’s fall
catalogue and
Mary-Kate
and Ashley
Olsen’s highfashion line,
The Row.