The World’s Longest Working Supermodel

Career longevity in any field is now a rarity but modeling? Pfft. They age in dog years. Still, Carmen Dell’Orefice actually holds a world record for the longest stretch of time in continual work as a model. A Gemini, she’s been working since the age of 14 – “I’d roller-skate to shoots, I treated them like playdates,” she said – and turned 90 in 2021.

Did she ever think about retirement? Well, yes, actually. But when her life savings were scooped up and dematerialized by the Ponzi con-merchant Bernie Madoff, she quickly surmised that she’d need to keep primping and posing. He was, she thought, a good friend – not to mention a trusted advisor. It was early 2009, she was 77, and transit Pluto was conjunct her Moon – a security-quaking astro-passage at any time.

Madoff Fuqed Her Over When Pluto Was Conjunct Her Moon

Her rising sign is indeterminate as her birth time is not public, but my guess is Pisces. Why? Well, she has a Capricorn Moon, which reflects her beautiful bone structure and decades of ongoing self-discipline. Her Gemini Sun is auto-set to cool-hunt: never mind if you were a teenage acquaintance of Salvador Dali, she will continually adapt and be drawn to breaking trends.

But her insistence that a veterinary product called Bag Balm is her skincare secret makes me think she’s pulling a Pisces Rising Low Maintenance ruse. There is absolutely no way a woman who looks like this, whose face is literally her fortune and survival weapon, would moisturize with petroleum jelly.

Her languid hauteur and lanky frame mean she is often cast as the representative of a WASP aristocracy, but her upbringing was hell: poverty, violence, an abusive mother and exploitative father, shuffling between foster homes and little education from the second it became apparent that her looks had major earning potential.

Gemini Sun – Capricorn Moon is the ultimate ageless-aging combo

Dell’Orefice is a self-educated, self-created phenom – there was no nurturing, never a buffer zone. In the post-war world of boob-centric, oestrogenic icons like Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot, model agencies told her to go away and take hormone shots.

“Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds, I can’t wait…”

Holly Golightly – Breakfast At Tiffanys

Her Uranus is conjunct the Moon’s North Node in Aries – these people are nearly always bootstrapping their life and times into gear. They’re self-made by default, and the good news is that the process generates unbelievable resilience. Her signature scent? Bandit.

While Gemini Sun/Capricorn Moon is a fabulous combo for ageless aging and youthful-ish fashion sense regardless of chronological age, she also has the big-time blessing of Mars in Leo. Photogenic as fuq, this is a performance Mars – more comfortable on stage or in the spotlight than in bed secluded. Additionally, she is also a Mercury + Venus in Taurus woman – the perfect combo for fashion eloquence.

She never talks about politics or feminism – at least not in public – but insists magazines cite her real age. “Why limit your life with self-imposed ageist thinking that says ‘oh, I can’t do that…I’m too old’?”

43 thoughts on “The World’s Longest Working Supermodel”

  1. So Mutable It Hurts

    Wonder if she’s still alive?? 👀 and omg bag balm 😂😂 my family was totally into that stuff in the early 2000s until I realized wtf it was!!! I think Shaniah Twain also claimed to use it…

    1. So Mutable It Hurts

      Oh for some reason I thought this post was from 2011 bc all the comments are…anyway she’s still alive and looking better than ever!!!! Maybe she admits at least to using a guasha 😂 those cheekbones! She must be cap rising imo

  2. She is stunning. The poor love has HAD to keep working as she was
    a victim of Bernie Madden’s pyramis scheme and lost ALL her money.

    Am a titch envious when i see that white hair, love it, but alas it’s never
    going to happen to me, i have such few silver hairs at coming up
    ‘will you still love me, will you still need me when i’m 64’ time, as to
    be quite unusual.
    Could that be the Cap rising, or the delayed aging of the Sagg sun

  3. Wow she was born on my birthday.
    Hope I look that good when I get to that age.
    Know how it feels to have a disapproving jealous mother.

  4. Ok, pardon my ignorance about the Miss Universe contest but why aren’t there more like these involved?

    Uranus on north node is fascinating yet I always imagine scuffles with the law under that.

  5. unpredictable pisces

    what a woman. Such resolve and independence, and an interesting life.

    If it’s moon in cap that does it, i can relate to the austere-mother scenario. It’s either that or the fact that her chart is 90% air; not quite the loving attentive warmth one assumes in the typical(?) wholesome family setup.

  6. totally gorge. Love white hair. Helps if you are a natural red hair your hair goes naturally white I ‘ve heard. Must have fantatastic genes minus the horrid mother personality bit.
    Most northern Europeans I knw have gorge skin as they don’t fry themselves in the sun as we aussies use to.
    A tan was essential in my youth and my repitlian skin now is living proof.
    My horrid mother ‘keep out of sun’ nagging to my ranga son has paid off as at 12yrs he has only a smattering of freckles whereas I was covered at his age and well on my way to regualr visits to the skin doc decades later.

    I am learning how to make the most of my best features as I’m sure Miss Carmen does. It’s an art.

    1. I noticed in Europe women looked on average 5 years younger
      due to skin. Was told the secret was simple Nivea creme.

      As a sun worshipper at the altar of Ra, it’s only the last 2 years that
      i haven’t lay in it for hours at a time.
      It was in 1990 in SA as further south of the continent, that the sun
      was like a laser on the skin, like an ‘ouch’ that bites!
      Whereas in the tropics it is much milder closer to the equator.

      1. I have a theory that consumption of sugar causes as much or more damage to skin as sun, and that it assists sun-damage. But we need sun. Even I, a near-redhead, need sun. But prefer it closer to the equator. Sun in Melbourne on a hot summers day is too much – just like a laser, you’re right!

        1. Sugar can caramelise your cells, true. And, vitamin D is not really a vitamin but a hormone – tres important to get a lil of the good sun on places like eyelids, elbows and back of knees – where it is absorbed best.

  7. I am transitioning to gray after years of denial (while rocking some Watercolor brunette action) – I can only dream of looking so elegant, but it certainly gives me something to aspire to.

    That Cap rising age-defying magic should be kicking in any day now!

      1. I think Charlotte Rampling is the most beautiful woman ever to appear on celluloid. She’s about to appear in a production of one of Patrick Whiote’s books, and in the promos she, aged 65 and completely unbotoxd or fixed in any way that I can see, is still absolutely stunning, and she is not airbrushed the way Helen Mirren is. Her beauty now is in the way she has aged. She is just electric in every film I’ve ever seen her in, from The Night Porter onwards.

        1. Madame Rampling i have adored since Georgie Girl.
          So agree about her having no work done.
          What about Julie Christie another ageless beauty, although
          she did admit to a little fluffing for her last 2 movies, but not
          much at all.

          1. That’s what’s so beautiful about her. And YES, it does make a difference. On the cusp on middle age I see my looks morphing from that dewy fresh plump thing that we all did into something else entirely. i will never be a Charlotte Rampling, but that one photo of her has convinced me that I’m going to be a beautiful and terrifying old woman nevertheless. It’s something to aspire to!

  8. She looks phenomenal!! And her hair is stunning. I’ve always loved white hair. The other day I found a gray hair…and I’m just 21. But I won’t mind being premature if it’s as white as this. 🙂

  9. love gemini’s – people with sun or moon in gemini are always fun. I have Libby sun and Virgo planets – so am drawn to airy mercurials.

  10. OMG, again? First Heidi Klum is born a few days after him and now this lady is born on his birthday.
    My husband is going to look better every year from now, it’s not fair! He even is French-Chinese in heritage so has exotic look and tans up a treat.
    Oh well, lucky me, I guess.
    (Sits down to channel Mila Kunis – fellow Leo, Moon in Scorp).

    1. Mila Kunis is gorgeous and French-Chinese sounds like a gorgeous combo too. May your husband work his Gemini forever-youth and may you work your glorious Leo!

        1. Gosh, if only! I have the complexion that goes with strawberry blond hair. I have one of those faces that can be alternately beautiful and ugly. It depends on my mood. If I’m happy, people turn to watch me walk down the street. If I’m not, I’m ignored in shop queues and small children stare at me at bus stops. Born on the same day as Judy Garland, who I always thought had the same sort of face.

        1. I tell ya after I wikipedia-ed her, she’s so much more impressive for her other achievements like honorary doctorate and roller skating to work when younger. Not just a pretty face! 🙂

  11. What a woman! So gorgeous and I love that whole ‘age is just a number’ ‘tude… wonder if she has Gemini rising?

    Oh, and this isn’t really on topic, but OMG was just reading Susan Miller’s scopes and she is DOWN on next weekend (24th-25th). Seriously negative about it, due to the Uranus-Sun opposition. Just wondering what peeps here feel about it? Mystic hasn’t flagged it especially, and I’m hoping it’ll be fine… Susan Miller isn’t that accurate for me anyway, usually.

  12. One of the most stunning women in the world. Her whole fortune apparently disappeared with Bernie Madoff’s pyramid scheme (she was one of his friends). But she soldiers on! Look what bone structure can do for ageing- then just accept that you will never look like that and stop giving your money to anti-ageing cream manufacturers!

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