It might sound strange that Maye Musk became a supermodel at the age of 69, but that was all just part of the plan
A few years ago, as Maye Musk was about to step onto the runway at some fabulous fashion show during the fifth decade of her illustrious career, a young model approached her looking for advice. The model was upset, it turns out, because she had been rejected from a casting call for Gucci. “But, she said, ‘I’m doing Dior and Givenchy.’ So I said, ‘Those are three brands that have never even considered me. You’re doing just fine.’ And she felt good about it, because I’m a supermodel. She’s just an ordinary model, but I haven’t done what she has.”
It’s pretty obvious why people love to ask Musk for advice. Her inspiring example as a model who broke beauty barriers when she became a face of CoverGirl in 2017, at the age of 69, and her undeniable positivity are enhanced by a charm that is impossible to resist. Besides that, she’s a dietitian and nutritionist who holds several advanced degrees, and also, famously, a great mum. Her three children are successful in their own right. Her oldest son is so famous that people often introduce Maye Musk, who’s now 72, as “Elon’s mother”, but in the fashion world, he is still just “Maye’s son”.
Wise Words
People have been telling her for years to share her pearls of wisdom in a book. In fact, she had published a nutrition guide in 1996 called Feel Fantastic, Maye Musk’s Good Health Clinic, but that wasn’t really about her experiences, which are far more interesting than counting calories and eating the right things. Given the rise of her celebrity status since then, it finally made sense for Musk to sit down and write A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty and Success, which has become an international bestseller this year with releases in the US, Russia, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan and South Africa. A Chinese edition, unveiled in July, sold out immediately and had to be reprinted.
“Well, it was much easier than I thought because now, what the editor wanted me to do was just discuss my life history and the lessons I’ve learned,” Musk says. “So I did all that. And then it gets transcribed, so I don’t even have to sit and type. Can you imagine how great that is?”
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Musk is being humble, of course. That’s all part of her appeal: this sophisticated, glamorous, gorgeous woman who prioritises family, education and hard work while making it look so effortless to wind up on the cover of a Kellogg’s cereal box or star in a Beyoncé video or raise a billionaire son who builds electric cars and rocket ships.
But reality hasn’t always been pretty, and retelling some of the darker chapters of her life—leaving an abusive husband, scrambling to make ends meet as a young woman in South Africa and moving eight times—gave her pause about sharing them, until her editor insisted. It was learning how she overcame the hard parts, in fact, that gave the book its reason for being, as well as its title.
“When things go wrong, there is a common saying in Afrikaans: ’n boer maak ’n plan. A farmer makes a plan. Because in the farming business, things change all the time, so you better make a plan to fix the problem,” Musk says. “The editor said many women will relate to this story, and it’s funny enough that they do, even in China. It seems that men everywhere can be very dominant and cruel to their wives, and even hit them, and that I was surprised about.”
Putting Plans Into Action
While Musk has modelled professionally since she was a 21-year-old contestant in the Miss South Africa beauty competition, and has worked at various points as a catalogue model, a plus-size model, a mother-of-the-bride model and, much later, as a seniors-division model (all while simultaneously running modelling schools and a nutrition counselling practice), becoming a supermodel happened only recently. In part, her success is reflective of a broader trend to embrace diversity in the fashion industry, from ages to races to genders. But mostly, it’s because she made a plan and acted on it.
“We are living in a time when women have never been so empowered to pursue a more fulfilled and meaningful life,” says her friend Wendi Murdoch, the Chinese-American investor and art collector, who met Musk through a mutual friend, the actor Hugh Jackman, at the 2017 premiere of The Greatest Showman. “Maye serves as a role model and inspiration. She does not lament getting old, but rather embraces every living moment.”
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