For Carmen Dell’Orefice, age is just a number.
At age 91, the silver-haired stunner is the world’s oldest working supermodel. And this month, she’s sharing the cover of New You magazine with another groundbreaking beauty: Beverly Johnson, 69, who became Vogue’s first black cover model in 1974.
Dell’Orefice even posed nude for her shoot and looked completely comfortable as she sat under the covers in the buff.
“Just like working with acclaimed photographer Fadil [Berisha], it’s their perception of what they see in you or me. We’re here, a synergy is starting to develop and they’re bringing it out,” the catwalker said of why she was open to stripping.
“It’s where their mentality is. The photographer’s mentality is high, not in the gutter. It’s all projection. We’re all silent actresses, and that’s what matters.”
Like Johnson, Dell’Orefice has a special bond with Vogue: In 1947, at the age of 15, she stood before the fashion bible, making her one of the magazine’s youngest cover stars of all time.
“Of [photographer] Irving Penn, I brought my first double page in Vogue to life,” she recalled from her first appearance in the magazine a year earlier.
“He told me to try to breathe as little as possible and not to move. Just sit there. Irving was a very good friend to me, and he saved my life physically. He forced me to go to the Vogue staff doctor to make sure I was healthy enough to work, because at that time child labor required you to be licensed, especially at my young age.”
Dell’Orefice hasn’t stopped working since then; she appeared in campaigns for Sephora, H&M and Missoni, among others, and walked runways for Thierry Mugler, Moschino, Isaac Mizrahi and more.
The New York native attributes motherhood and self-love to keeping her young.
“Men and women should take care of themselves and love themselves. One of the secrets of preserving beauty is doing what you do for a baby, nurturing and caring for the baby with love,” she said.
“That’s what we should be doing with ourselves: nurturing ourselves, loving ourselves, and giving that kind of energy to ourselves.”
Johnson, who called Dell’Orefice her “idol” and “model goals,” will celebrate her 70th birthday on Oct. 13 and shared the same advice with the magazine.
“Right now I’m doing Pilates. We all know you need to eat right, drink plenty of water and exercise and exercise or have some sort of routine,” she said.
“I try to take care of myself every day. And that also means meditation. I have a spiritual life, four grandchildren and my daughter. All those things, along with love, keep me in balance.”
Johnson, who has covered more than 500 magazines over her career and continued to push for greater diversity in the industry, returned to the catwalk at New York Fashion Week in February.
She spoke to Vidak For Congress Style shortly after about the “magic” moment, joking that she “flew through New York like it was 1970” and admitted that she’d had her very first runway class beforehand to polish her strut.
“It’s not just walking… it’s theatre, it’s dance, it’s movement,” she told us. “It is not easy.”