NO RULES, BIG SMILE

Linda Rodin. The centrifuge of life didn’t manage to drain her energy. On the contrary, today the model and stylist, who worked with Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts and Gosta Peterson, looks astonishing. At almost 70, the vintage jeans suit her appallingly well, the bright-red lipstick is captivating and her large sunglasses make her look rather mysterious. “It sounds funny that they still like me 40 years later, when I’m wrinkly”, says Rodin.

She belongs to the “gang” of models aged 60 and above: Carmen Dell’Orefice, Daphne Selfe, and Joan Didion. “I don’t see this as a business, I’m just having fun. We’ve always been around, it’s just that now we became trendy like the Japanese models or those who look like Abbey Lee.”

Linda Rodin attends 2017 Tribeca Film Festival – Tumi Debuts The “19 Degree Experience” at Spring Studios on April 24, 2017 in New York City. (Guliver Photos/ Getty Images)

Linda doesn’t spend ages in the lotus position to receive enlightenment. She watches TV until late. It makes sense to ask – what it her trick to looking so good? Or perhaps she just accepts life as it is, and that’s how it repays her. “The whole culture today is flawed. They retouch photos of 20-year-olds, and they don’t even have a single wrinkle. Getting old is considered a crime. Sometimes when I walk outside, I get the feeling they might arrest me because of my wrinkles.”

Linda Rodin and Ilona Royce Smithkin and Erik Liberman attends Karen Walker during Fall 2013 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Pier 59 on February 11, 2013 in New York City. Quiana Grent and Linda Rodin attend VH1 and MILK Celebrate New Reality Show THE SHOT Hosted by Photographer RUSSELL JAMES with his Prelude Exhibition “Gorgeous” at Milk Studios Penthouse on October 25, 2007 in New York City. (Guliver Photos/ Getty Images)

Her hair is light-gray and hasn’t been dyed in over 30 years. She doesn’t focus on her wrinkles, but rather on her silhouette. Super-foods have no place in Linda’s diet – wheatgrass, kelp or ground hemp seed. She starts her day after at least 8 hours of sleep with a cup of cappuccino, which she drinks while walking her pet poodle Winky. “Every day I eat the same thing. A lettuce, avocado and boiled egg salad with nice Italian olive oil. And I never miss drinking two glasses of cold white wine.”

Quiana Grent and Linda Rodin attend VH1 and MILK Celebrate New Reality Show THE SHOT Hosted by Photographer RUSSELL JAMES with his Prelude Exhibition “Gorgeous” at Milk Studios Penthouse on October 25, 2007 in New York City. (Guliver Photos/ Getty Images)

If you go into her apartment in New York, you’ll feel like you’ve landed both in the right and the left side of her brain simultaneously – a mix of new and old, a sense of humor and timelessness. “I believe that in my previous life I must have been a mermaid. My apartment looks like the sea – a white floor, sky-blue walls and lots of sunshine.”

Thank you, Linda, for joking around with life and changing its rules with a smile.