New beginnings are to Brooke Shields what impossible things are to Alice in Wonderland — on any given day, she’s dreamt up to six of them before breakfast.
OK, not literally, but such is the premise behind the actress-turned-entrepreneur’s lifestyle platform, Beginning is Now, which promotes the idea of opportunity and positivity among women ages 40 and up, who are often met with the very opposite messaging.
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“The minute I hit 40, I was shocked at how I was represented,” said Shields at WWD’s Wellness Forum, in conversation with WWD’s Jenny B. Fine, adding that for all the spending power women over the age of 40 possess, the representation they have in the media and beauty industry is meager at best.
Harnessing her hard-earned resolve to change the narrative about aging, Shields, now 57, founded Beginning is Now in 2021 and has since cultivated a community of women who are looking to seize what life has to offer in middle age and beyond, and connect with others who feel the same.
“I don’t want to be in my twenties, I want to embrace who I am,” Shields said. “Beginning is Now is focused on well-being for women over the age of 40, but the most important part of that is actually changing the conversation around age.”
Through the platform, women can access articles about health, wellness, hobbies, relationships and more, and read monthly open letters from Shields herself.
Community members can also follow along with workout and stretching videos, with Shields hinting that category expansions — including wellness and beauty products and, fittingly enough, eyebrow products — could be on the horizon.
“I think I was afraid of beauty in the beginning,” said Shields, adding that she worried she would seem like “just another” celebrity trying to sell a product when in reality, her aim with Beginning is Now is to uproot a narrative that few others are tackling.
Said Shields of the stigma that is often associated with aging, “It was similar to when I had postpartum depression — not that it’s depressing to be older — but in the sense that no one wanted to talk about it.”
By creating a platform that provides women with the support that she herself sought for so long, Shields is not only helping women adapt to the many changes that come with aging — but also to revel in the joy that can only arise as a byproduct of a life well explored.
“By the time you’re my age, you’ve learned a lot,” Shields said. “You’ve heard a lot, you’ve made terrible mistakes, you’ve been afraid and you’ve also found really good people in your life. You’ve found what makes you happy, and now it’s time to sort of take all of that and say, ‘OK, now I’m ready.’”
Just like it takes a village to raise a child, Shields believes it will take an equal effort to turn the presiding cultural attitude about aging into a more truthful one — one that recognizes the gift of a long life.
“When you lift other women up, it’s a miracle how much more buoyed you feel,” Shields said. “This is not ‘I am woman, hear me roar,’ you know? It’s ‘I am woman, hear me more.’ Hear me more, see me more — not because I’m invisible, but because I have so much more to show.”
Shields said that those who lean into the upsides of aging rather than dwelling in the cynicism perpetuated by society at large, have found that their best lives have yet to be unlocked.
According to Shields, there is more happiness and more discovery ahead for those who choose to find it. “It’s our turn to sort of galvanize each other. There’s more to life, even if it’s in doing less,” she said.
It was not until her daughters — one of whom is an avid makeup user — hit their teenage years, that Shields began to fully understand the intersection of beauty and wellness.
“I never communicated with makeup at all,” Shields said. “I said to my daughter — she’s 16 — ‘Well, why do you do it? You don’t need makeup,’ [my daughter] said ‘Mom, it just makes me feel good,’ and that had never occurred to me.
“I’m seeing this younger generation appreciate [makeup] differently by owning the fact that they’re not trying to look different per se, but rather trying to feel better, and I want to learn that.”
Shields revealed that she never fully appreciated her own beauty until her first pregnancy.
“It was the first time I stepped outside of myself and stopped comparing myself to others,” said Shields of being pregnant. “When you’re in my industry, it’s all about comparison — you’re not skinny enough, you’re not talented enough — everything’s about what you’re not, and it’s rarely about what you are.”
Shields’ self-love journey remains ongoing, and while she knows she does not yet have all the answers, she does know that through persistence and unity, the prevailing gloom and doom surrounding aging can steadily be replaced by a more sanguine truth.
“The precedent that I’m hopefully setting [for my daughters] is that I do my best for them, but also that there is more to their mom,” Shields said. “Just because I’m afraid of something, or I may fail at it does not mean I won’t try, and I think that’s important that we pave that road for younger women.”