The ageless Martha Stewart: She’s both chic and messy. That’s why Gen Z love her

Gen Z has a juggernaut of a new beauty influencer: 80-year-old Martha Stewart. In February the world's most celebrated domesticity virtuoso went viral with five startlingly sassy, coquettish, goofy, rambunctious video ads she made with Clé de Peau, a Japanese skin care and makeup company, for that online stronghold of 13- to 25-year-olds, TikTok. In the first seven weeks after the videos were posted on TikTok and Instagram, they had 78 million views.

The most watched of these ads, shot in Stewart’s kitchen and bathroom, begins with her saying: “I hear you’re looking for the perfect recipe for hydrated skin.” It has been viewed 47.9 million times.

But what is Martha Stewart doing promoting a prestige beauty line to Gen Zers, one that sells a $550 (€520) La Crème moisturiser, Enhancing Eye Contour Cream Supreme for $280 (€265) and $75 (€70) concealer?

The settings for the videos are various rooms (sort of like the game Clue but without the murder) and the swimming pool of Stewart’s home in Bedford, New York, creating an intimate, entre nous mood.

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'A segment of Gen Z aspires to look and act 'expensive,' and luxury products are a part of creating this lifestyle'

And no question – they are attention grabbers. Making the most of her 15- to 30-second screen time in each, she winks, pouts, shrugs or sticks out her derrière; she mimes putting on serum, eye cream and lip balm, urging her viewers to "project fabulous". All the while she seems to be channelling that supreme blond bombshell of her youth, Marilyn Monroe.

But true to form, Stewart dresses conservatively, in loosefitting tops, throughout the videos. She also executes her famous finger wag and utters her “It’s a good thing” meme. So rest assured, beneath it all, this is still the cake-baking, mulch-spreading Martha, as she is known to her millions of followers.

Only here she’s parodying not only herself, but also the whole idea of hard-sell beauty commercials. And leave it to her to do so with a hauteur that belies her giddiness – a holdover, maybe, from her early career as a model, starting in high school.

“I can almost feel the camera behind my back,” Stewart says, adding, “I have a good body, good form, good posture.”

Contemporaries of Stewart, like Rita Moreno (90), Tina Turner (82) and Helen Mirren (76) look great – alluring, in fact. Faces like theirs, showing at least a modicum of honest wear and tear above a trim and toned body, are becoming a familiar look today.

That is not Stewart’s look. She, too, is alluring. But in her Clé de Peau videos, and in her own TikTok and Instagram videos and in real life, too, she doesn’t remotely look her age.

TikTok and Instagram posts, as well as comments from interviews, attest to this with comments like “Martha you stunning fox” and the stream-of-consciousness “lovethislovethis”.

"She looks like she did 30 years ago," says Peyton Abrams (23) an accountant in Dallas.

"She looks so young," says Lata Prabhu (51) a wedding planner and designer in Denver. "I'm in awe. She would give women half her age a run for their money."

"I don't think she's cognizant of 'I can't do this,'" says Madelyn Strauss (66), a retired client services manager in Princeton, New Jersey. "She's not trying to impress anyone. She's a very strong woman."

But there can be a cognitive dissonance to seeing an 80-year-old who looks so youthful.

"Honestly, I thought I was seeing an impersonator pretending to be Martha," says Vianna Carlsen (49), a stylist who divides her time between Copenhagen and New York.

"I had trouble watching the videos," says Cynthia Medalie (66), a psychotherapist in New York. "I felt that she was trying to inhabit a much younger part of herself."

Some viewers doubted the videos' authenticity even as they praised Stewart's mastery of TikTok. "Her posts are probably all lighting, a little smoke and mirrors, but she understands the platforms. She's in on the joke and doesn't take herself too seriously," says Bonnie Abrams (50), a marketing executive in New York.

The first reaction of Rafe Totengco (53), a handbag designer in New York, was “Wha-a-t? What was she on?” He once ran into Stewart at a fashion event, “where she came across as reserved,” he says. “Watching her ham it up seemed so out of character. But I kind of liked it.”

"She's learned to laugh at herself, and she looks beautiful," says Callie Blecher (32), a print media planner in Albany, New York. "But it's an absurdly wealthy, carefully crafted type of beautiful."

And focusing on the videos, 13-year-old Nilah Rivera, a middle school student in New York, found them “trying too hard to be trendy”.

“It seemed like a team of young people created them,” she says.

She is partly correct. The Clé de Peau shoot was produced by Haus of SOS, a digital production company, working with Whalar, a tech-influencer agency, and led by Whalar's head of creators (as the title is known), 41-year-old Ashley Rudder. Assisting her was her 19-year-old daughter and actor, Ke'Andra Rudder, who choreographed Stewart's twists, turns and fast-paced transitions.

“She brought her own flair to it,” Ashley Rudder says. “I feel now that we’re making pop culture history.”

'She shows Gen Z the possibilities for maintaining its hot, sexy vibes, making ageing less scary and more exciting'

At the very least, they’re making Clé de Peau a name on TikTok.

“A segment of Gen Z aspires to look and act ‘expensive,’ and luxury products are a part of creating this lifestyle,” says Biz Sherbert, culture editor of the Digital Fairy, a London creative agency specialising in the internet and youth culture. Items like three- and four-figure Air Jordans and the Dyson Airwrap, which costs up to $600 (€570), as well Clé de Peau’s products, are sought-after, with young people “dropping hundreds and hundreds of dollars on skin care,” as Peyton Abrams puts it.

Achieving a perfected face is a goal in itself today. The blame for that is easily placed on social media. "With smartphones and the pandemic's reliance on videoconferencing, it was game over," says Charlotte Palermino, chief executive of Dieux, a skin care line in New York. "All of us were constantly on view, constantly seeing ourselves. No other generation has seen their faces more than Gen Z is doing right now."

So no wonder many young people today, confronted with images of their own faces as never before, are willing to spend whatever it takes to perfect them. Dr Sheila Farhang, a dermatologist in Tucson, Arizona, and Los Angeles, says that she has heard that local college students squirrel away funds their parents send them for meals so they can save up for Botox. Personally, however, she rarely administers Botox for cosmetic purposes to anyone younger than the late 20s. And while many other doctors do not give this neurotoxin to those younger than 20, spa and beauty salon personnel are known to administer it with little concern for age.

And then there’s the lure of the updated Stewart herself.

"Youth is a mindset that Martha is still really owning," says Eve Lee, founder of the Digital Fairy. "We define this category as 'Generation Ageless'. She is a perfect example, consistently demonstrating icon behaviour by being both chic and messy. She also shows Gen Z the possibilities for maintaining its hot, sexy vibes, making ageing less scary and more exciting."

Not to forget that Stewart is also "an entrepreneur, a hard worker, confident and smart – very appealing to my generation," said James Goldstone (23), a fashion student in Los Angeles.

Nor to mention her well-publicised friendships with the Kardashians and Pete Davidson, or the line of CBD gummies (very directional) and a chardonnay selling for $11.99 to $16.99 (whose bottle label has a QR code that directs users to an augmented reality experience – also directional) she recently introduced, or her longtime relationship with Snoop Dogg.

And not to overlook her 2004 felony conviction and prison sentence, which even Gen Zers yet to be born back then are aware of.

"That's the salient thing," says Kimberly Macleod (54), head of Kmacconnect, a strategic communications firm in New York. "She's a supreme capitalist – absolutely a sellout. But she's also indomitable, a force to be reckoned with."

Or as Alessa Miki (30), an accountant in Honolulu, puts it, "She's gone on a rebrand." That's exactly the point. The indelible felony conviction may be a key factor in Stewart's loosening up in recent years, when she has joked about herself and even allowed herself to become, as in the Clé de Peau videos, a parody.

But it can't be forgotten that she holds a unique status for the daughters and granddaughters, the sons and grandsons, of her longtime loyal TV fans. Many of them recall with nothing short of awe nestling on the sofa with their mother during episodes of The Martha Stewart Show. Miki remembers watching alongside her grandmother, as well.

There it is – nostalgia and nourishment in one neat package. Climate change, Covid-19 and the threat of war may beset Gen Zers. But just as Stewart showed their mothers how to bake a cake, she offers her face to this up-and-coming demographic, doling out hope for an unwrinkled future, and while she's at it, access to "traditionally female traditions – the core," as Sascha Stannard (31), a home goods designer and e-tailer in Los Angeles, puts it.

“I think when she was coming to popularity, a lot of women were moving away from that,” Stannard says. “She took those traditions, made them her own and showed that you could be strong and cook and have a full life.” Gen Zers want that too.

Back to Clé de Peau. Stewart's public praise for that brand over the years caught the attention of Alessio Rossi, executive vice president of Clé de Peau Beauté US, a branch of the Japanese beauty conglomerate Shiseido. He sought her out for "an unexpected campaign where we could let her be confident, ironic and also accessible," he says. "We saw her as part of our strategy for winning a new generation of consumers."

Stewart has had work done, by Dr Daniel Belkin, one of her two New York dermatologists

She agreed. It was “serendipitous,” Rossi adds.

Stewart’s attitude about makeup is reflective of her generation: It’s basic, an essential. Her response when asked if she wears makeup while spending time at her swimming pool is: “A touch of blush and then lips. That’s not makeup. I consider that skin care.”

Beyond Clé de Peau, she plays the field when it comes to products. She also uses Charlotte Tilbury products, and "she loves a Bobbi Brown bronzer," says Daisy Toye, her longtime makeup artist. What's more, she has gone for facials at the Mario Badescu salon in New York since it opened in 1967.

Stewart’s smooth, glowing complexion has spurred the widespread assumption that photo and video appearance enhancers – filters, as they’re known – were employed to alter her face in the Clé de Peau videos. Not so, she says, asserting that filters have not been used in her personal life or in the TikTok videos.

Speculation is likewise widespread that Stewart has had a face-lift.

"I have never had plastic surgery," she says. "You can absolutely say that. No knife on my face, neck or back." And as John Barrett, her hairstylist, puts it, "Martha has never had the time off to let a face-lift heal." But he adds: "Basically, women of a certain age, if they look amazing, they've had something done. That's the way it is."

She has had work done, by Dr Daniel Belkin, one of her two New York dermatologists. "Non- or minimally invasive," is how he described it, with repeat visits "probably twice a year. She's doing it thoughtfully and conservatively". Belkin uses lasers for redness, gentle resurfacing and brown spots; fillers for volumising and collagen stimulation; and radio-frequency and micro-focused ultrasound for sprucing up the brow area and for "lifting, tightening and plumping" under the chin. And for her lips: "A soft hyaluronic acid, more for hydration than for plumping."

Stewart's other dermatologist, Dr Dhaval Bhanusali, customises a holistically grounded, CBD-infused hydrating serum, calming mist and night cream for her. He and Stewart are developing similar CBD topicals for consumer use. These will be in addition to a line of therapeutic creams – for muscle recovery, sleep and stress – that she already has with Canopy Growth, a cannabinoid company.

So it may be that Stewart's smooth, glowing, wrinkle-free face is just the jolt that's needed as our collective eye adjusts to a new vision of vital old age. No – make that expanded middle age, or agelessness. Whatever else Martha Stewart is, she's ready for the long haul. – This article originally appeared in The New York Times