Nicola Griffin, a middle-aged single mother from Nottingham in Britain, was queuing with her twin daughters at the bank one day when a stranger asked a somewhat unlikely question.
The stranger was from a hair product company, and she wanted to know whether Griffin, who ran a business organising student exchange trips, would be willing to model for the company’s latest campaign.
Griffin was sceptical but her teenage daughters, Tabitha and Elly, urged her to give it a go.
The hair signing quickly led to more modelling jobs, including a skin campaign, lingerie shoot and retirement home brochure.
Three years after that trip to the bank, at the age of 56 and a size 16, she has just become the latest pin-up for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, an American institution for more than half a century. This makes her the oldest person to appear in a magazine known for skimpy bikinis and doe-eyed youngsters.
The shot of a gold bikini-clad “real woman” emerging from the Caribbean Sea has been welcomed as a glorious riposte to body-shamers and ageists who believe that quinquagenarians shouldn’t be seen dead in a two-piece.
Pigmentation marks, tick. Wobbly thighs, tick. Griffin is unapologetic about all of it.
“I have a big tummy, but I gave birth to two 3kg babies at the same time,” she says. “It is not a flat stomach, it is rounded. This is me. It has not been photoshopped.”
As cover girl, she joins the elite ranks of Elle Macpherson, Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Irina Shayk and Kate Upton, who have all posed for the publication.
None of this makes Griffin’s late-life career change any easier for her to believe, however. “Will I wake up,” she asks, “and realise I have been having a great, big dream?” — The Daily Telegraph
Mom, 56, shows age is no barrier
The stranger was from a hair product company, and she wanted to know whether Griffin, who ran a business organising student exchange trips, would be willing to model for the company’s latest campaign.
Griffin was sceptical but her teenage daughters, Tabitha and Elly, urged her to give it a go.
The hair signing quickly led to more modelling jobs, including a skin campaign, lingerie shoot and retirement home brochure.
Three years after that trip to the bank, at the age of 56 and a size 16, she has just become the latest pin-up for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, an American institution for more than half a century. This makes her the oldest person to appear in a magazine known for skimpy bikinis and doe-eyed youngsters.
The shot of a gold bikini-clad “real woman” emerging from the Caribbean Sea has been welcomed as a glorious riposte to body-shamers and ageists who believe that quinquagenarians shouldn’t be seen dead in a two-piece.
Pigmentation marks, tick. Wobbly thighs, tick. Griffin is unapologetic about all of it.
“I have a big tummy, but I gave birth to two 3kg babies at the same time,” she says. “It is not a flat stomach, it is rounded. This is me. It has not been photoshopped.”
As cover girl, she joins the elite ranks of Elle Macpherson, Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Irina Shayk and Kate Upton, who have all posed for the publication.
None of this makes Griffin’s late-life career change any easier for her to believe, however. “Will I wake up,” she asks, “and realise I have been having a great, big dream?” — The Daily Telegraph
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