The Portrait of Dreams

Karen Williams

Beauty is a too powerful language to restrict it to just one stage of life. We need new models to spread this awareness.

1. Bio

A model, activist and empowered ageing ambassador, she currently lives in New York. She began her modelling career at the age of 13 and then signed for Ford Models, but once she had paid for her studies she left the world of fashion and devoted herself to acting and film production. She agreed to return to modelling at the age of 53 with one very clear aim: to represent and give visibility to women who are ageing, including in the worlds of fashion and beauty.

2. The power of a dream

It’s incredible how much of my life has been connected with showing my exterior beauty, even though being recognised for my beauty has never been my aim. It’s a great fortune and a tool that has enabled me to study, to travel, to shape my passions, and for this I’m grateful. But I’ve always been more interested in activities that have allowed me to think how I can be useful, how I can improve myself and all that surrounds me. And the irony of life, at a certain point, was that precisely my experience as a model became the instrument for spreading a message of inclusion and positivity.

3. My journey into real beauty

Beauty is incomplete without diversity, and age is one of the parameters that we must learn to show if we want to speak of messages that are truly inclusive. Ageing is natural, it’s a privilege, and in this sense my Jamaican origins have formed me and sustain me: we revere our old people, and what we see in them is a timeless beauty that steadily grows with increasing experience. This is my journey into true beauty: spreading the knowledge of a perspective that tells you there’s no need to stop time, either inside your own skin or in your social possibilities. It’s possible and a mark of success to aspire to a lifestyle that welcomes the flow of time, that appreciates its abundance and wealth. I believe it’s important to show that there exists a full and gratifying way of living even outside the realm of anti ageing.

4. What I learned and won’t let go

I returned to modelling after 3 decades understanding the power of visual messages. My silver hair is a celebration of living. My dream is for mature women from diverse backgrounds to proudly and boldly expand their passions and dreams; and for their contributions to be truly valued. That’s what I dream for all women.


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