Pino Montesdeoca: “I like myself and I'm afraid of not liking myself if I retouch myself”

Date in the small Madrid penthouse where she lives, alone, with Pink and floyd, two Andalusian wine dogs rescued from a river where they were abandoned as newborns, and who make a big fuss about their visitors until their owner calms them down. She does not miss me. Montesdeoca Pine, this petite 61-year-old woman, with long white hair, a magnetic face without a drop of makeup and a deep voice filtered by a buzzing Canarian accent and extreme kindness, produces immediate peace. Perhaps more than she feels herself after a few turbulent years. After living for decades in Sweden and then in the Bahamas, where she was on the brink of death from a mosquito bite, and the recent death of Bo Linné, her husband since she was 18, this teacher, a model by accident after 50, confesses to being in full reconstruction. And she explains herself.

With that face and that skeleton, did you never think about dedicating yourself to fashion?

I never, ever thought I could be a model of anything for anyone. Since I was a child I believed that people didn't like her.

Now he will tell me that he felt like an ugly duckling.

Neither. I always felt different, but I experienced it as something negative. He didn't impress, but rather imposed on the guys. I've gone out all my life with my friends, and the flies approached them, not me. Don't have sex appeal. It's not what I emit.

What do you think it emits?

Now, notice the paradox, closeness. My beauty, if I have it, of course I have it, like everyone else, is from the inside out. It's more and more me. Over the years you eliminate rubbish, complexes, pretensions. You become cleaner and that can make people identify with you.

What rubbish was he carrying?

Conceit, arrogance, arrogance. As I soon understood that I didn't fit in, I filled myself up.

What a graphic and powerful image.

It's like that. Nobody liked it, but I did like it, I filled myself with everything and that led me to pride, which is one of my ugliest sins. I left the Canary Islands for Sweden when I was 18 for love, with my Swedish boyfriend. I became a mother at 19. Then I studied and became a teacher. I didn't want to be a bad example for anyone, neither for my daughters nor for the students. I had to be the perfect wife, the perfect teacher, the perfect mother, the perfect woman. I have always known about my arrogance, but it has only really started to bother me when I have been left alone.

Alone? She has two daughters.

My daughters are older and fly alone. My husband died a year and a half ago, and when I was alone, I realized that she had to be with myself and that she couldn't stand me. I no longer had to be that woman with two balls, so I started to get rid of things. I think I like it now because now I am pure essence and that is perceived.

How do you handle that loneliness?

My husband, Bo, was a lawyer and worked for the Swedish Army. He traveled a lot, and so did I. Maybe he was stationed in Ukraine and I was in the Bahamas, where I worked for a while as an advisor to a businessman and where I was almost killed by a mosquito bite. But we always got together. He died of a sudden relapse of a cancer that he had previously overcome. We had seen each other two weeks before and he was upbeat and well [muestra fotos de ambos, maravillosos, en el móvil]. I returned to Spain to work. My daughter, who is a surgeon in Sweden, warned me that things were getting bad on the eve of the Madrid fashion week shows in 2022. I took a plane, but I didn't arrive on time.

Did that traumatize you?

There death is accepted and lived in a different way. I was able to say goodbye to him in a beautiful ceremony with our friends. No dramas with that, but I do have a bit of anger and anger left in me. That's why I go out for a walk very early every day, with my headphones, and I talk to him, I scream, I cry, I kick my feet. Then I get home and get to work. Work helps me a lot. Each one grieves as best they can.

Why do you think designers call you to parade in their clothes?

Because I fit, now, mind you, with the idea they want to convey. And because I suppose there are women my age who, when they see me, buy the brand. Let's be realistic. One can be cute, but this is about money.

Working in a world as slave to image as fashion, have you been tempted to touch up your face?

I liked it and I'm afraid to stop liking it. My daughter, the surgeon, also took courses in aesthetic medicine, comes to Madrid to inject Botox at a clinic and she tells me that she can give it to me, I couldn't have it any easier. I see friends who do it and they look great, but others don't. What makes me laugh is who does it to her and she tells you to your face that nothing has been done. Sorry? You look divine, but you have done something to yourself.

Maybe that's its success, it shows that nothing has been done.

We have reached the absurdity of being called careless if you don't do it. So, I come out and say: “Gentlemen, it is normal for a 61-year-old woman to have wrinkles.” Look at the vindication of what is the most normal thing in the world, you have to screw it. Having a birthday is cool, it's okay. Taking care of yourself is moving, eating well, trying to be happy. I have made the decision to be me. I have more important things in life to worry about than what my eye or neck looks like.

Carolina Herrera said that, after 50, long hair is not elegant. What would you and your long hair say to him?

Oh, darling, I think the girl made a mistake there. I'm not going to take it the wrong way because I don't know what she meant at that moment, nor do I want to excuse her. Obviously, I consider myself an elegant woman, but maybe for her her elegance is something else.

And for you, what is it?

I have no idea, but I know how to recognize it. I saw in a documentary an African woman sitting on the floor doing something with her hands with a slowness, a dignity, a poise and a pride and, at the same time, a humility of being who she was that came through the screen. She seemed to me to be the most elegant woman in the world.

Don't you sometimes feel the quota of older women in the shows, like that of women over size 42 or disabled women?

Oh, honey, how difficult that is. I know how I am. The models, let's say, standard, are super necessary in the fashion shows. They are the ones who take the designer's work to a, let's say, sublime status. I see those girls with those almost insulting measures, impossible for almost everyone, and they take my breath away. You see them walk and they seem to float. Damn, they're a spectacle, sorry. Diversity is a wonder and I think the two things can coexist.

His name is Pino Montesdeoca, he cannot deny that he is Canarian.

It is what I have left of my land, because now I have nothing left. My husband died. My mother died this Christmas. My daughters live abroad. My dear brother lives in the Bahamas, he had an accident and he is no longer the same. I am the one who takes care of her daughter, who we have raised together. Everyone died on me, but that's okay too. Once you accept it, it is what it is. Another weight less that I carry, what do you want me to tell you.

_