On Wednesday 21st March, WORLD celebrated 4 Days of Fashion with an in-store event hosted by Co-Founder Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet, who spoke candidly about the realities of ageing.

Dame Denise on the wonderful WORLD of ageing

Benny Castles of WORLD introduces Dame Denise. Photos courtesy of Sacha Stejko.

The champagne flowed and delicious vegetarian canapes were abundant as guests milled around WORLD’s exquisite  Tyler Street store, admiring the taxidermy, beauty products and beautiful garments. WORLD’s Benny Castles led the ceremony by introducing the ethos of the brand.

“WORLD is a personality brand. What drives a personality brand is a personality. WORLD is a family, it’s about inclusion.”

Dame Denise was awarded the title of Dame Companion of New Zealand in the New Year’s Honours List 2018 by Queen Elizabeth II. Presenting a biographical recollection of how it feels to grow old & the things that no one dares tell us about.

She begins by asking a few hard rhetorical questions:

“Is this it? What’s it all about? How do we define beauty?”

Dame Denise then proceeded to take us on a journey that began with her difficult childhood, through the turbulent hair experiments of her teenage years up to today’s current point on the ageing scale. She didn’t hold back on laughing at life’s unexpected biological adventures.

As Dame Denise says in her memoir “All That Glitters“, we can’t fight nature.

“I have no problem with ageing, it is just a part of life as you pass through. I have never had any work done, no fillers, Botox or anything, I am not in that ‘tribe’, it just does not appeal to me.”

Dame Denise’s message encapsulates the ideology of appreciating what we have when we’re “young”. One day we’ll be older and we’ll realise what we had. In our culture of anti-ageing, it is truly inspiring to see a strong-minded woman of such style and intelligence bringing attention to the fact that it’s OK to age gracefully.

Melissa Reid

Melissa Reid

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