The Southsea curator and founder of Grey Model Agency breaking down age barriers

When Rebecca Valentine, now 50, first launched Grey Model Agency in March 2015 – she had no idea of the revolution against ageism she would ignite.

‘Grey has been going seven years, we’ve done all sorts of major campaigns, from Gucci and M&S to Emirates, we’re very global.’

‘I'm known by all the casting directors and ad agencies because I've worked in the industry for 25 years. I used to represent master photographers who are really well-known around the world.’

When Rebecca, who lives in Southsea, founded the now global agency, the former photographic agent just wanted to do something ‘different’.

‘I was bored with seeing fresh-faced young girls who all looked pretty but very much the same,’ says Rebecca.

‘You see a story in an older face.’

Grey Model Agency isn’t exclusively an agency for mature models but if you are, it helps.

‘When I started Grey Model Agency, it was because old people weren’t really represented in advertising campaigns,’ says Rebecca.

‘You didn’t see them on runways, you didn’t see them on the front covers of magazines - unless it was someone's mum or granny.’

To launch Grey, Rebecca wanted to challenge the perception of 'grey' with her campaign fronted by friend and punk vintage model, Sara Stockbridge, sporting a tee which read ‘Am I Grey?’

‘Grey is considered really bland, if you have grey hair you’re considered some old grey fossil, so it was to push the boundaries on that concept,’ says Rebecca.

‘We were really causing trouble in the fashion industry.’

Since then, Rebecca has started a domino effect.

For women in their forties, fifties and beyond, the modelling industry began to recognise them as significant players, taking steps to an ageist free landscape.

‘The 'grey' revolution has moved far beyond the embrace of silver hair or the hint of wrinkles in beauty campaigns, it’s a revolution that redefines our perception of age and ageing,’ says Rebecca.

Rebecca has trailblazed her way through her seven years of directing the company.

‘We’ve done lots of groundbreaking,’ she says.

I became known for that in the industry,’ adds Rebecca.

Even as a photographic agent, Rebecca was the first to take chances and make strides where others wouldn’t.

‘I was representing not only photographers, but illustrators and street artists, which doesn't sound that new now but at the time nobody was representing street artists,’ she says.

‘When I started Grey, I had pretty much done all I could as a photographic agent and wanted to do something new.’

Rebecca entered the fashion industry with bags of experience, contacts and a goal ‘to disrupt,’ and was soon making waves in the concept of agelessness.

Signing a range of mature models and guiding them on their road to success, from 82-year-old Frances Dunscombe whose first commission was for Prada with Hunger magazine and Mia Maugé, the first mixed-race 50+ model to be in an M7S lingerie advert in August last year.

Rebecca says: ‘When I first signed Frances, she walked for London Fashion Week 2015 that same week for Chinese designer, Youjai Jin, with a collection inspired by the designer's relationship with her own mother to create styles to suit all ages.’

‘Since then she’s been on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, fronted campaigns, flew to Tokyo for the first time, she’s done very well.’

Frances also posed nude for photographer Josh Redman, a ‘brave’ move, says Rebecca, with her image going on to win the John Kobal Photography Award and National Portrait Gallery's people's choice award that year.

The oldest model Rebecca has on her books is 106-year-old Eileen Kramer, the Australian dancer, artist, performer, and choreographer known for banning the word ‘old’.

‘She’s amazing, she used to hang out in Paris with all the artists in the 30s,’ says Rebecca.

‘It’s just really humbling to work with the people that I do because they've had, and are having, amazing lives, and it’s so much more than how they look and what they’re wearing.’

Born in Portsmouth, Rebecca moved back to Southsea from her fast-paced London life with her two children, Louis, 19, and Esme, 14, in 2019.

‘I didn't want to be landlocked anymore, I wanted to be able to see the horizon,’ says Rebecca.

Despite being instrumental in bringing diverse prospective models into the industry, Rebecca knows all too well the impact that this world can have on any generation.

‘Both my son and daughter have modelled as children,’ adds Rebecca.

‘I wanted them to do a couple of jobs to see that it’s not real, the end result isn't perfect skin and a beautiful jawline. There's a whole group of people that create that.’

During lockdown, as an international company Grey Model Agency was kept ‘afloat’ by previous campaigns and an ability to adapt, with models unable to go to castings in-person and instead, taping themselves on their phones.

‘With creativity and modelling and photography, even when things are locked down it has a way of flourishing in a new and different way.’

‘That’s kind of where grey is born from,’ adds Rebecca.

As part of the ‘Grey Collective’ Rebecca has introduced GreyMaa in the wake of the pandemic – offering tutorials for wannabe models on how to represent yourself.

‘It's the business side, what to do, what not to do and what to expect,’ she says.

‘You’re always going to need an agency because agents don’t just make you money, they protect you and they grow you – but we can’t represent everybody.’

But she’s not finished there.

‘I don't consider myself a model agent at all, I just happen to run a model agency,’ adds Rebecca.

Her newest and possibly biggest disruptor to the status quo is Grey Matter – a think tank designed to push companies and individuals to think laterally about how they approach the older demographic.

‘We’re frustrating a lot of things that have been set in stone,’ says Rebecca.

‘What’s come out of Grey is that people don’t really understand how to talk to old people – they talk to them in the same way that Age UK might do.’

Grey Matter attempts to re-educate through consultancy, providing talks and briefs and collaborating on events that promote agelessness. Currently working with a luxury retirement company on inclusion, the think tank aims to bring together both the younger and older demographic.

‘A lot of my photographers throughout the years have photographed some of the biggest musician names in the world, from the Rolling Stones to Hendrix, and there’s a guilt now because they were also retouching photos of Twiggy, it’s like they were complicit in that perfection.

‘But now it’s being rewound, Grey tries to get people who haven’t had surgery or botox, they've got the wrinkles and the blemishes, it’s real.’