Golden Opportunities

Zip Cheung, founder and CEO of seniors modelling agency Ohh Dear Communications, and Anita Lee, cofounder and CEO of social enterprise Time To Gold, which empowers elderly women by employing them in traditional Hong Kong dessert-making, discuss why we need to make older people more visible and what they’ve learnt about ageing from the “young-olds” they work with

- Rachel Duffell

It was tough for Zip Cheung when she first started Ohh Dear Communications, Hong Kong’s first modelling and marketing agency specialising in the over-50s, in 2016. Scouting for senior models on the streets of Hong Kong’s Wan Chai and Central districts, the response was consistent: who would want a senior as a model?

Counting brands including Gucci, Bioderma and the MTR corporation among her clients, it was clear that there was demand, and luckily Cheung had some leads from her previous career as a journalist covering retirement topics.

But it was more than the commercial opportunity that led Cheung to leave journalism. Having spent her days interviewing “young-olds”—those between 50 and 60 years old—she had become sensitive to the way these older people were presented, because the stereotype didn’t fit the reality.

“In Hong Kong, there is a group of ‘young-olds’ that are quite active and would like to pursue a positive lifestyle when they grow old. It’s an attitude I think everyone should adopt, because [hopefully] every one of us will grow old and if we all adopt a bright, active lifestyle and a positive attitude, it will be good for us and good for society as a whole,” she says.