Before she was an actor Andie MacDowell was a model. On Monday, four decades after she last walked a catwalk, the 60-year-old star returned to the runway wearing a jewel-encrusted Elie Saab dress and a huge smile for the L'Oréal Paris Le Défilé show at Paris Fashion Week.
Speaking to Vogue before the show, MacDowell spoke about her return as a catwalk model. "I haven't walked a show in a long time," she said, adding that she loved getting to walk alongside such a diverse group of women – she appeared with Liya Kebede, Soo Joo Park, Thylane Blondeau, Ming Xi, Maria Borges and Doutzen Kroes – and that she was thrilled to be back in Paris, where she'd moved when she first started modelling, at the age of 20.
“I grew up in a teeny-tiny town in South Carolina, so I wasn’t exposed to anything like Paris,” she said. “This city is where I got my education and grew up in so many ways. Oh, and learned how to wear red lipstick.”
Also walking the 65m catwalk floating on the River Seine were Eva Longoria, Ellie Fanning and Winnie Harlow.
The actor also spoke about what it’s like to still be a beauty icon as she enters her seventh decade. “I’m in the process – and have been in the process – of ageing,” she said. “And with L’Oréal I’ve really been able to [spread the message] that there’s no time limit on beauty.” She added, “It’s a journey, but you can’t go back in time. I don’t want to pretend to be what I’m not and have never been ashamed of my age. I want to be positive about right where I am at each stage of my life.”
In the late 1970s and 1980s, before going to Hollywood, and starring in movies such as Steel Magnolias, Green Card and Notting Hill, MacDowell modelled for Calvin Klein and Yves Saint Laurent, among others.
