By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer

Carolyn Doelling is on a mission. At 78, the former marketing executive turned fashion model is campaigning to open the industry’s eyes to what older people bring to the table. 

Doelling moved to California in 1975. Over the years, she has lived in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, where she now resides. The Bay Area senior is living a dream she “fell into.”

“I was never aspiring to be a model,” Doelling says. “It kind of chose me. It’s a platform for me to let the world know that a 78-year-old Black woman who is short and gray still has a lot to offer to the world. Part of that is just encouraging other people who look like me, or as old as I am, to empower themselves.”

Modeling sprung from an incident while she was preparing for her son’s wedding. As the mother of the groom, Doelling wanted to look her best. In a moment straight out of the Tina Turner biopic “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” a routine perm went wrong.

“We had an accident and that took some of my hair out,” Doelling shares.

At the suggestion of her hairdresser, she turned a potential nightmare into an opportunity to try something new.

“She goes, ‘The gray hair looks great. Why don’t you just go with it?’ I had just gone gray and stayed gray,” she says. “I was getting a little more attention and that kind of catapulted me into taking more photographs, which is something I would never have done before then.”

Doelling retired in 2018 at age 70. 

“I was starting a different transition. If you’ve been working a 9 to 5 all of your life and then all of a sudden you’re retired, you have to decide what you’re doing,” Doelling says. “Also, people have a different perception of you and what you should be doing. That’s kind of the ageism out here in the world. I quickly realized that I was being underestimated for what I could still do.”

An Agent For Change

Noticing other women of similar age resolving themselves to just let age take its course, Doelling saw something different for her golden years. Her photos started getting noticed by local boutiques and she thought, “Why not?”

“I got a New York agent who respected what my message was and also had an ambition to try to include different kinds of people in the fashion industry,” she says. “They’ve been very helpful about getting me into the right places and the right clients. Whenever a client is interested in someone who is what they call a ‘mature’ or ‘classic model,’ my agent is very good about presenting me as a possibility.”

Doelling has auditioned for major brands such as Estee Lauder and Marc Jacobs. Her go-sees don’t always go well or end in her being hired.

“The reception has been pretty extraordinary, but I’d say the rejection rate is higher than the acceptance rate. That’s just a factor in the industry,” she says. “It’s clear that I’m not going to be chosen for some of these. What I’m hoping is that I’ve left kind of a lasting impression for people to consider.”

As an older woman, Doelling has developed a thicker skin than most of her younger counterparts who may feel devastated when they don’t “make it.”

“I don’t have anything to lose,” she says.

Doelling has done print and in-store work including campaigns for the Athleta brand and Pattern Beauty, owned by actress Tracee Ellis Ross. She has written for “Sister,” AARP’s newsletter geared toward older Black women. Though she never has actually seen it, she also appeared in a commercial for the fitness equipment brand Bowflex. She’s riding a bike in the commercial.

Personally, she stays fit with regular gym visits and kickboxing classes.

“I never had aspirations to be like a top model or anything,” Doelling says. “I’m realistic. I realize that I’m swimming against the tide, but I’m just trying to make a point wherever I can that there are other possibilities. When you look at the demographics of the world, there are a lot of people who are not 5-foot-10 and size zero, white with long, blond, flowing hair. It’s the message that I’m delivering, and I think we’ve had some success with that.”

‘I Refuse To Be Invisible’

Having a voice and message dates to her roots in Kingston, North Carolina.

“Growing up in the rural south, I was an activist speaking out against segregation. So were all of my family members,” Doelling says. “I feel like that activism has been ingrained in me and it is why I feel so strongly about having people who are at a certain age be overlooked.”

Her modeling journey also aligned with the global COVID pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and demands for Confederate statues to be dismantled.

“It was actually at a time when, in general, we were all going through kind of a transformative period, thinking, ‘Why are we still celebrating Robert E. Lee? Why are we still paying honor to that?’ There was also Black Lives Matter.

“There was a lot of questioning going on in general, so the timing was pretty good to ask the question about this as well: ‘Why is the woman who’s advertising clothing for mature women 22 years old?’”

On top of ageism are challenges to being an older Black woman in an industry hyper-focused on youth and a European standard of beauty.

“Modeling is a little difficult to break into when you don’t have all the attributes that they’re looking for,” Doelling says.

She remains undaunted. 

“I’m having the best time in my life right now.”

Modeling has taken her to all the fashion meccas, including New York, Paris, Milan and London Fashion Week. While she’s booked and busy, she plans to stay closer to home. With a daughter living in New York and a son, and new grandson, living in Paris, her itinerary may change.

“I do a lot of traveling, but I’ve vowed that I’m going to stay put for at least a couple of months,” Doelling says. “We’ll see how that goes.”

She’s defining who she is and she likes it. She advises other older women to adopt the same mindset.

“Everyone else might have an idea about what you should be doing with your life because you’re at a certain age,” Doelling says. “They’ll say, ‘You shouldn’t wear short skirts. You shouldn’t do the kickboxing. You shouldn’t travel by yourself.’ A lot of those comments are really out of genuine caring, but you know how you feel and so I suggest you just ignore it. 

“You can’t go back and redo what you did or how you began or why you began. You can’t change who you married, or left, but you can start now. You can start today and change how things end. It’s really important to continue to understand that you have the power to make those changes. Granted, there will be a day when health issues are going to interfere. You won’t be able to, but today you can. My mantra is, ‘You do have to keep it moving.’”

Doelling still hopes to engage with more high-profile designers on her fashion journey and hopes they’ll book her for shows in New York or Copenhagen.

“At this point in my life,” she says, “I just don’t want to leave anything undone.”

EDITOR’s NOTE: This Sensational Seniors article is part of OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer Genoa Barrow’s series, “Senior Moments: Aging While Black.” The series is being supported by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and is part of “Healing California,” a yearlong reporting Ethnic Media Collaborative venture with print, online and broadcast outlets across California. The OBSERVER is among the collaborative’s inaugural participants.