‘We’re back to the 90s’: older female models struggle for work as brands play it safe post-Covid

'Since Covid, it’s been dire,’ says model Alex Bruni. Photograph: Morgan Tedd / IA London

Not long before Covid struck, 66-year-old model Alex Bruni spent an interesting day being shot by Rankin, the British photographer who has worked with Kate Moss, Madonna, David Bowie and the late Queen.

Rankin had put Bruni in a bath and asked her to pretend to have an orgasm. She was delighted. “It was an advertisement for Coco de Mer sex toys,” she remembered. “I thought that was great: the idea that you could give older women sex toys as presents because we are still playful, sexual beings.”