For her 68th birthday in 2019, Rosa Saito decided to give herself an unusual present. Over the past year, she had been approached by photographers and casting agents three times on the streets of her home town in São Paulo, Brazil, each telling her she should consider becoming a model. Initially, she brushed off the flattering advances, but after deliberating for several months, she changed her mind.
“No one had commented on my appearance until I reached 67, when people suddenly started to notice me,” she says. “It was very strange, but being spotted made me realise I could still achieve something for myself at this stage of my life. I had raised three children and now I wanted to see what I could do alone. If not now, then I never would.”
Contacting one of the agencies that had previously approached her, she was immediately added to their roster and sent out to castings. “At my first casting they asked me to act like I was just getting home from a nightclub, but I have never done that before,” she laughs. “I didn’t get the job, but I started to see how modelling is about inhabiting a character and performing. It was a challenge that began to excite me.”
It would be another year until Saito booked her first job. Arriving at dozens of castings and routinely turned away with little explanation or feedback, she was determined to see these experiences as an opportunity to practise her posing and walking in front of other professionals. “The rejections only made me want to book a job more,” she says. “I was used to facing difficulties in my life and so these were small setbacks compared with everything else I had been through. I was prepared to keep going.”
Saito learned resilience from an early age after becoming the sole carer, at 22, for her mother, who had a stroke. After the death of her husband, to whom she was married for 20 years, in 2000, she raised her three children alone. She has always been passionate about natural remedies and plant medicine. “I think that is the most important thing that has helped me look the way I do today,” she says. “I’m a natural person and I’ve never had any surgery. I have just taken care of my body with nature for my whole life.”
In 2020, at 69 years old, Saito’s persistence paid off and she finally booked her first modelling job for a Brazilian cosmetics brand. “I walked into the photography studio and I was so nervous, especially since I was the oldest person there,” she says. “But as soon as we began, my experience from all the castings kicked in and I relaxed. The production team asked me where I had been hiding, since they said they had been looking for older women like me for years. It really helped me feel accepted.”
Saito also found herself unwittingly becoming a role model for the younger women on the shoot. “I got so many compliments from the other models and it made me realise that my presence was showing them that you can grow older without fear,” she says. “It’s important to show the fashion world that we exist and that women of all ages should be represented.”
Now 73, Saito has modelled for clothing brands, cosmetics and magazine editorials, while her highlight has been making her debut at São Paulo fashion week in 2022 as one of the oldest models on the catwalk. “I don’t feel old and I don’t think about getting old, since it’s a gift to be doing this in my 70s,” she says. “I love modelling because each job is a unique challenge and it pushes me to give the best I can. It has made me a more confident person in all parts of my life.”
While her children are supportive of her work, Saito ultimately finds joy in doing something for herself and has no plans to stop anytime soon. “I feel I have given a lot to others and now it is my time,” she says. “I have plenty of dreams for the future and milestones I want to achieve, but the real beauty of maturity is knowing that anything is possible, at any age.”