SuperstylingUK

Bra, £25, Briefs, £16, by Always Aliza at J D Williams

You have to love Marie Helvin. Here she is looking inspirational at 62 years old doing a lingerie shoot for the Always Aliza range at J D Williams.

In fact, Marie Helvin has always been an inspiration to me. She was modelling in the first fashion show I ever went to as a teenager. Fashion designer, Anthony Price was doing a huge ‘Fashion Extravaganza” at the Camden Palace and my BFF’s and I travelled from Bristol for this monumental occasion. I like to think it was more like a pilgrimage. My friend Sophie had mastered the art of ‘ragging’ where you coil about a hundred sections of your hair in rag strips, leave them in for about 4 hours and once removed you have the biggest hair ever. So we all drove from the West Country in my friend Charlotte’s tiny hatchback car sporting our hair rags, the car hardly big enough to accommodate our heads. Fellow drivers up the M4 must have been fairly bemused at such a sight.

Bra, £25, Briefs, £14, by Always Aliza at J D Williams

Anyhow, it was with perfect ‘big hair’ that I saw Marie Helvin and her chum Jerry Hall on that dazzling catwalk and as corny as it sounds now, I had that Eureka moment and decided my destiny was in fashion. So Marie, I thank you! From then on I avidly followed her career pouring over all those amazing pictures her then husband David Bailey shot of her. Some of them seemed quite ‘out there’ to me as a teenager, especially the one where she wore her stiletto in her knickers!

Decades later and Marie Helvin is still is looking fantastic in lingerie. She says she has to work really hard at looking this toned now. She goes to the gym four times a week – doing 45mins to an hour of weights, rowing machine, bike and floor exercises. Well it’s definitely paid off.

Bra, £25, Briefs, £16, by Always Aliza at J D Williams

Modelling for Aliza Reger’s “Always Aliza’ range was particularly significant to Marie.

“Janet Reger was such an iconic brand throughout my modelling career,” she says, “and it feels great to now be modelling her daughter’s range for J D Williams almost forty years on.”

I love this collection with its pretty pastel shades and floral prints. The size range is really impressive too – it’s available in bra sizes 34B to 50G and knickers sizes 12-32 – hooray!

Marie says after 47 years of modelling lingerie this is definitely her last shoot. Oh no! Why stop now?

“Why?” She laughs, “I’d rather eat pizza…”

Bra, £25, Brief, £14 by Always Aliza at J D Williams