Paulina Porizkova Redefines Beauty at 60: “This Is Me, No Filters Needed”
At 60 years old, Paulina Porizkova is redefining what it means to age gracefully — and most importantly, honestly. The legendary supermodel, once the face of countless fashion campaigns and magazine covers, is now using her platform to promote something even more powerful than designer labels or flawless looks: self-acceptance.
In a bold and deeply personal Instagram post shared on Monday, Porizkova posted two side-by-side images of herself that couldn’t be more different — yet both, as she emphasized, are equally real and equally her.
In the first image, she poses on vacation in a white bikini, bathed in golden light, standing confidently against a picture-perfect backdrop. The lighting is flattering, her pose intentional, her look polished. It’s the kind of shot that wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of a high-end lifestyle magazine.
But then comes the second photo. No glamorous destination, no strategically angled lighting. Just Porizkova at home, standing in her bathroom in a nude-colored bra and underwear, her naturally gray hair loose and unstyled. She isn’t posing. The lighting is dull. And yet, she looks just as strong — just as herself.
“This is me,” she captioned the first photo. “Vacation, pretty light, posing for a shot.”
She followed it with, “This is also me. Home, not great light, not posing.”
With that simple comparison, she delivered a powerful message: beauty isn’t dependent on filters, youth, or staged perfection. It’s not about ideal conditions. It’s about being honest with yourself and others — and finding peace in the truth of who you are.
Porizkova then took a deeper dive into what it truly means to be 60 — not just in appearance, but in experience.
“This is 60,” she wrote, in a caption that resonated with thousands of women around the world. “Sixty years of sometimes healthy eating, sometimes not. Sixty years of working out on and off. Sixty years of doing the right things — and also making the same mistakes, again and again.”
She described a lifetime of trial and error, of self-discovery and occasional self-neglect, of trying to “figure it all out” only to realize that the answers keep changing. It’s not a story of perfection, but a story of persistence — and a willingness to start over when needed.
“It’s 60 years of learning what works and what doesn’t,” she continued. “And just when I think I’ve figured it out, everything changes — and I have to begin again.”
But it’s precisely that cycle — the struggle, the surrender, the resilience — that has given her the insight she carries today. In a moment of poignant reflection, she added:
“The beauty of 60 is that now I understand — the value is not in passing the exam. It’s in learning the lesson.”
This isn’t the first time Porizkova has used her voice to challenge conventional beauty standards. A longtime spokesperson for Estée Lauder and one of the original supermodels of the 1980s, she has grown increasingly outspoken about the way society treats aging women — especially in the age of social media, where digital touch-ups and ageless illusions dominate our feeds.
During a candid appearance on NBC’s Today show back in January, Porizkova addressed the cultural obsession with youth and the growing fear of aging among women.
“I feel like we’re so scared of wrinkles,” she said. “Have you noticed that? We’re terrified of them — because, I suppose, they signal that we’re no longer relevant. No longer sexy. No longer desirable. And for women, those things have been our so-called calling cards for such a long time.”
She challenged that outdated narrative by reframing how we should view signs of aging.
“I look at wrinkles — mine, yours, any woman’s — and I see a map of life,” she said. “I see the evidence of laughter, grief, strength, love, and survival. I see the person underneath. So why would anyone want to erase that? Why have we decided that wrinkles are the same as acne — something to be ashamed of or hidden?”
Her words were not only empowering — they were revolutionary in a culture still clinging to youth as the ultimate ideal.
Now, in her 60s, Paulina Porizkova is leading a new kind of beauty movement — one that doesn’t sell serums, surgery, or secrets to looking younger, but rather encourages us to look in the mirror and accept what we see. To find value not in perfection, but in progress. Not in appearance, but in authenticity.
She’s not just showing us what 60 looks like. She’s showing us what freedom looks like.
