Jane Hitchcock’s remarkable career in modeling began at age14 when she was chosen as 1 of 2 girls from all over America for a scholarship to train at the school of Balanchine for the world’s premier ballet company, The New York City Ballet. She would make her first airplane trip to the wondrous city of New York from Alabama and her life would become more than she ever dreamed of.

With in weeks of arriving, photographers were stopping her in the street wanting to photograph her. She was then told she needed an agent and became the 5th model Wilhelmina, the famous Vogue model of the 60s took to begin her new agency. She was now Wilhelmina’s protégé and being schooled in the disciplines of a model. Her dance training made her a natural and gave her the posture, grace and understanding of movement and line, created when posing. She was able to bring her love of the performing arts to the camera which made her an ideal model for fashion photography.

Steven Meisel’s innovative thinking and recognition of the beauty in every age combined with the new awareness of a population whose demographics were beginning to tip the scales in the category of a woman 40 and upwards, brought a new revival. The advertising industry recognized this as the new emerging spending power and that it would continue to get ever increasingly bigger.

Cosmetic companies now began to create lines featuring “ageless beauties” Women were no longer made to feel undesirable because they didn’t look like the 18 year old selling they’re favorite cosmetics and young women were applauding these women models, now given hope that when they reached that “certain age” that they wouldn’t be considered unattractive. They had new role models for a future and no longer had to be afraid.

So it was a win win situation for all and the start of a new era in thinking and role modeling for women.

Steven Meisel had grown up with the models of the 60s and 70s watching their editorial and advertising campaigns coming out in the pages of Vogue every month. These images made an enduring impression and eventually led him to be a crusader to bring these girls back on the scene. He approached Vogue and inspired a new recognition of beauty in these girls who were now women in their 40s and 50s by photographing these famous models of the past such as Lauren Hutton, Lisa Taylor, Susan Forestall, Patty Hanson, Rosie Vella and of course Jane Hitchcock which he launched on the Covers of Vogue, on the inside pages for Calvin Klein, in a new campaign for Esprit and even including her daughter Serena with Jane in an international campaign for Ferretti Jeans.

Calvin Klein then used these women in a runway show in which in which he is quoted on CNN in a documentary about Jane as saying “there is a changing perception. These women are beautiful. Jane Hitchcock was in my show. I’m using her because she is perfect for what I’m trying to say. So women get better as they age. And that’s just what Jane Hitchcock has done.