There’s nothing quite like a TV thriller to hunker down with when winter hits – so Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw’s new Netflix show, Black Doves, has come at the best possible time. I won’t give away the plot (not least because I still have a few episodes left to go), but what I will say is this show feels pretty momentous in terms of what it says about the beauty landscape. Perhaps more so than it should.
Ludovic Robert/Netflix
While watching, I have been admiring Keira Knightley. She is, of course, famous for her statuesque beauty, but mostly it’s her skin that’s captured my attention. It’s clear, it’s even toned, but what struck me is the presence of actual, visible expressive lines. It is nothing short of refreshing to see a beautiful 39-year-old woman looking like… a beautiful 39-year-old woman. We are so used to seeing skin that has been smoothed, tweaked and tucked on screen at this point – regardless of an actor’s age – that it feels almost jarring at first to see Knightley’s face moving without restraint.
Chatting with my British Vogue colleagues about the show, several others had happily noticed the same thing. But how sad that seeing skin moving as nature intended – that appears untouched by needle or scalpel – feels unusual enough to remark upon? We are now so accustomed to seeing ageless leading ladies that when a woman with an objectively fabulous but apparently untweaked visage appears on screen, it jumps out at us more than the expertly choreographed fight scenes.
While I firmly believe it’s every woman’s right to do whatever she chooses to her face, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between women in their thirties and women pushing 60. We quite rightly celebrate the success of women in the public eye who are getting older – and looking good while doing so – but we don’t always address the fact that they often don’t really look their age thanks to various interventions, surgical or otherwise. It sends an unrealistic and unhealthy message to ordinary women outside of Hollywood – our mothers, aunties, friends, sisters… us – that ageing is only acceptable when you fight the physical evidence that it’s happening. When your skin doesn’t betray any signs of your hard-earned years – years we’re all lucky to have.
It seems that actually, many of us crave seeing real skin – as evidenced by the response to Keira and to Kate Winslet, the ultimate woman’s woman, who has been outspoken about the media’s scrutiny of female stars. “Women get more beautiful as they get older, for sure,” she said earlier this year. “Our faces become more of who we are, they sit better on our bone structure, they have more life, more history. Things I find incredibly beautiful are wrinkles around the eyes, [and on] the backs of hands.” She is ageing without apology – who could forget her gloriously vanity-free performance in Mare of Easttown?
