Actors like Michelle Pfeiffer and Sharon Stone, who remain charming at 59, have helped raise the average age of the most beautiful people. In 2017, then 49-year-old Julia Roberts was voted the most beautiful woman in the world - for the fifth time (which is a record) - by the American magazine People, 26 years after she entered the list.
At the same time, French President Emmanuel Macron, 39, does not hesitate to publicly admit his love for his 64 striking blonde wife, Brigitte.
So wherever we look, then, around us mature women over 40 rewrite their own rules: by Rowling and Michelle Obama, to Anna Windour, Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Aniston, although… "middle-aged" are in the most dynamic and creative period of their lives.
These are women who are aware of the global situation, women who in their way exert some influence on those who have them as their role models and do not even hesitate to publicly express their political beliefs and views.
So what are perrenials, and what are their characteristics?
After the terms Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1980), Millennials (1981-1997) etc. adopted to characterize various generations (depending on their date of birth) which are also used to define their interests and consumption habits, a new terminology is making its appearance in the world.
This is none other than the term "perennials", which wants to define all of them women who go through the 40's and 50's, remaining active and active, so much so that the former are characterized as the new 20s and the latter as the new 30s. These are women 40+ who feel, look and behave like much younger.
The term was coined by businessman and influencer Gina Pell (49), who inspired him from the tireless generation of today's mature women in their 40s and 50s.
More specifically, in an interview with the British Telegraph, she tried to explain the term by saying that "Perennials are those mature women who have a clear picture of what is happening in the world around them, have a very good relationship with technology and have friends of all ages."
In other words, it is those women who participate, maintain their curiosity and self-confidence, are a source of inspiration for the younger generations, remain passionate, compassionate, creative and cooperative and are not afraid to take risks and of course shoulder the consequences.
According to Pell, therefore, “the age it is nothing more than a number ", with several people, namely women, agreeing with her view. Thus, this term, she explains, is more unifying, and not divisive (for example the generational categorizations mentioned earlier), encourages the sense of age and its acceptance by all, while it also has the power to "embrace" those they feel represented by him, offering unity, a concept that the world today needs as desperately as any other moment.
What the surveys show
In addition to Pell's definition of perennials, research has been conducted on this particular female target group, with results that are by no means insignificant for today's data and our society.
One of them is the survey of the marketing office SuperHuman based in the United Kingdom, which was conducted among 500 women over the age of 40.
Of these, 80% believe that modern society has a misconception about how mature women live today, while more than two thirds believe that they are now going through the best period of their lives.
Impressive is the percentage of 59%, who feel more alive and young than ever - partly due to their commitment to a healthy lifestyle - with 84% of them answering that their decisions and actions in life in general are not determined by their age.
In fact, most of the participants seem more confident than ever. More specifically, 67% of them feel bigger self confidence than a decade earlier, while ambition, personal fulfillment and "doing things that challenge me" are among the important characteristics of 60% of women surveyed.
Despite the ambition and confidence that characterized most women in the survey, 48% of them said they felt less optimistic about their appearance than they had a decade ago, arguing that they felt pressured to look younger. In fact, 83% did not hesitate to admit that this pressure was the factor that most influenced their self-image.
Rebecca Rhodes (44 years old), co-founder of the company that conducted the research, called these oxymorons as the "paradox of self-confidence", as at a time when older celebrities and models are actively involved in advertising campaigns and the big screen, women in their forties and fifties still feel quite neglected.
This is reinforced, as Rhodes typically states in the Telegraph, by the fact that commercial companies are still "drowned" in negative stereotypes about middle-aged women, despite the great financial strength of 40 plus. In fact, by 2020 it is estimated that one third of the workforce in the UK will belong to the 50 plus age group, which will control about 80% of the country's economic wealth.