Age Is Just a Number to Christie Brinkley
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NEW YORK — Don’t tell Christie Brinkley you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
When Pet Life Unlimited was looking for someone to pretty up some senior dogs for an adoption event at a New York City shelter, they immediately thought of the supermodel. They didn’t have to ask twice.
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“They were looking for a beauty expert, a creative director for their ‘Furever Young’ campaign. They were looking for an old senior dog, and that’s me,” said the 69-year-old. “You know, I’ve got a few tricks I can share with the other old dogs. So I came in and helped them with their ‘glow-up.’ We used Pet Life shampoos and turned their wiry hair soft and shiny and moisturized. It was really fun.”
But Brinkley didn’t stop there. Together with the pet grooming company, she got a few of the dogs ready to replicate 10 of her most famous fashion covers from Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Elle and other magazines.
“We recreated them with the puppies in my place,” she said. “And it was so cute.”
Brinkley said her favorite was the Elle cover where she dressed Achilles, a pit bull, in a striped sailor shirt, blue and white puffer jacket and beanie for his “Cuddelle” version. “I renamed him Marseille because he looked like he belonged in Marseille in a harbor at night — kind of a tough guy with a heart of gold. He’s just got so much character, one of his eyes had been knocked out somewhere along the way, but he was great.”
Working with Achilles/Marseille also changed Brinkley’s opinion of the breed. “I was always terrified of pit bulls but he changed me.”
With all the dogs, Brinkley said they seemed to enjoy being dressed up for their cover shoots in Humane Society-approved outfits. But that didn’t surprise her since her Labradoodle, Maple Sugar, used to beg her to put on a Yankees outfit. “She passed away a couple of years ago but she would bring me her hat and literally step into her little T-shirt.”
Although Maple Sugar may have gone over the rainbow bridge, Brinkley now has another dog, Chester, that she adopted from a shelter in the Pennsylvania town of the same name.
Chester is still in his prime and enjoying life with Brinkley and her family so he’s not in the same position as senior shelter dogs, who have a 25 percent lower chance of being adopted. And who knows, maybe Brinkley will one day appear on a magazine cover with Chester.
Brinkley has been modeling since she was 19, a career she thought would be done by the time she hit 30. But of course that hasn’t been the case, with Brinkley still in high demand. In fact, she posed in a bathing suit with her two daughters for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue as recently as 2020.
And she’s applauding the fact that the magazine decided to feature the 81-year-old Martha Stewart on the cover of this year’s swimsuit edition.
“She was fabulous, her skin is unbelievable,” she said. “She’s busy and active and she looks great. I love when people do things like this because it changes the way women think. It sinks in. Women stop limiting themselves and stop thinking of themselves as over the hill once they pass 30. In the beginning of my career, I was told I was going to be over the hill at 30 — washed up, chewed up, spit out, done. So I think every time we keep pushing these envelopes, we redefine the way people think. Yay, Martha.”
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