Interview: The role models for mature women in fashion business

Now 44, Danielle was brought up in Aberford, near Leeds, and began modelling at 16. "My parents sent me on an etiquette course, because I was really shy, at the Louise Morton Agency, and while I was there they held a modelling audition."

So began a career that saw her working for Amanda Wakeley and Bruce Oldfield. "Before I had the children I did some lingerie, working for Triumph and Marks & Spencer. Now it's mainly small boutiques, and lots of shopping centres are coming back now with shows, because they had stopped during the recession."

The halt she had been told to expect in her modelling career has not yet arrived. "It carried on and on. I've never really had a gap. The longest I had off was nine weeks after having Ben." (Danielle, who is divorced, moved to Surrey earlier this year and has two children, Benedict, 15, and Isobel, 10). The work is seasonal, however, linked to spring and autumn shows and, when she is not working, she runs a dog-grooming business.

Danielle expects to carry on modelling for a while. "There's still a lot of work out there, although I wouldn't want to start at my age. People know you are going to turn up and be professional and have your modelling bag. They know you know how to talk to clients. The new girls are not trained as we were."

A well-stocked modelling bag, says Danielle, is an old-school essential. "There's about 50 pairs of shoes, scarves, jewellery, gloves, tights. The younger girls laugh and say, 'You've brought your whole wardrobe with you'.

"There are loads of older models. There's a clique of us from London to Yorkshire. The clients are about our age and they are the ones with the money. There were no older models around when I started."

Meanwhile, Chris Child, from Haworth, is still modelling in her mid-60s. Married to Ken, a civil engineer, with two sons, she has been a model for 40 years.

"I started modelling because of my size. I always seemed to be taller than my friends and never put weight on.

"For the past 10 years, it's been more catalogue work. If something comes in and it's suitable, I'll do it. I've done very well on tour with Finn Karelia.

"There's still a lot of work out there if you can be bothered to join a lot of agencies. There's a lovely team of girls of all shapes and sizes, and people will come up and say it's lovely to see larger and older models. I am a stock size 14 and 5ft 8in. People can't relate to 20-year-old size 8s."

Yet, not so very long ago, when a woman reached her 40s, she became invisible, certainly not model material. Now improved health and fitness, plus increasingly available surgical options, mean that women can continue to look good well into middle age and beyond. We live in the era of Madonna, 52, and Twiggy, 61, not to mention Joan Collins, 77.

So it's sad that the fashion industry has so far failed to reflect this change, seldom wavering from its heavy reliance on very young, very thin girls whose boyish, bony bodies it brazenly uses to show off and sell its clothes to mature women of means, and usually of normal to generous proportions.

Maybe not for much longer. There are signs that both the high-end fashion industry and the High Street retail sector that supports it are addressing the issue and catching up, bringing in older models to show off the clothes they so desperately want to sell.

It's partly thanks to the continuing success of the original

supermodels, especially the iconic models of the 1980s, who refused to get out of bed for less than 10,000 a day. Elle Macpherson, 47, has just featured on the catwalk for Louis Vuitton's And God Created Woman autumn 2010 collection. Then there's Kate Moss who, at 36, might have expected her career to be long gone, but who is going from strength to strength because, first and foremost, she is a superb model, with a timeless appeal.

The High Street is catching on, too. Debenhams has launched what it describes as a "pioneering campaign" featuring models in their 40s, 50s and 60s, joining forces with fashion campaigner Caryn Franklin on a project called The Style List, showing women over 40 how to dress.

"It's a business-savvy move," says Franklin. Debenhams has a stable of respected designers, including Betty Jackson, Matthew Williamson and Ben de Lisi, so is well placed to cater for discerning women of a certain age who are prepared to spend money. "It's important to challenge what we see in our media with a more authentic reflection of beauty," she adds.

Meanwhile, at a regional level, boutiques and shopping centres have been way ahead of the game for years, listening to their customers and featuring models of all ages and sizes.

"I think that what Debenhams has done is great," says Bernadette Gledhill, who owns and runs Morton Gledhill, formerly the Louise Morton Model Agency, based in Huddersfield, supplying many models, including Danielle and Chris, for Yorkshire catwalk shows and shoots. "M&S did

it with Twiggy. I think it will catch on."

Now 55, Bernadette started modelling at 15. "I stepped down on my 40th birthday, only because I took over the business."

She has a select stable of older models who have no trouble finding work. "With models of that age, we choose to have a small number of incredibly professional women we can use. We have about a dozen on our books out of around 100 models. Store and shopping centre catwalk audiences appreciate seeing looks on women more than a size 10, and I get a lot of women coming to me and saying, 'I'm 40, where can I buy clothes from?' Older men are also very good."

Danielle says that if she were to be offered work specifically as an older model, she would be quite happy, although she adds: "If I joined a new agency now, I don't think I'd give them my true age.

"When the girls backstage are all chatting, and asking how old everyone is, sometimes I think, 'Oh, I'm old enough to be your mother', but if you have the right look, they don't really bother about your age."