Clotilde: The only meaning of life is love. And never stop being playful and have fun.

Clotilde: My dear father-in-law would ask all the time, “What is the meaning of life?” My answer every time was “Love”, and I truly believe it. I don’t think that there is any other meaning of life than love.

There are many different kinds of love: the love for your partner, the love for your children, your family, your friends. I am very lucky because I feel that I have been loved my entire life, and this is an extraordinary chance. I grew up with love, I am surrounded with love and I love a lot of people in return. That’s what keeps me going and enriches my life every day.

Clotilde: I have been married for 30 years and I truly believe in the notions of respect, kindness and affection in developing and maintaining a long-term loving relationship. I think that a strong common ground is essential to establish a relationship, and from there both partners have to keep making an effort and working on the everyday dynamic to maintain a strong and respectful connection. Without that effort, the risk is high to slowly drift apart and wake up one day thinking that you don’t have much in common with your partner.

We share an extraordinary bond with my husband. We have been through a lot together, and we had life-transforming experiences that made us really close to each other. Every day is an opportunity for thoughtful exchanges, loving comments, and above all, lots and lots of laughter together.

Clotilde: I take energy and happiness from having family and friends and spending time with them. I give love and I receive love.I love to take care of others, to be kind to them, to cook for them - it is a huge part of my life - to listen to them, to comfort them if I can.
I take a lot of pleasure in being physically active. I love being athletic and exercising. In order to stay young, or age well, I try to be open to any new experience or encounter.

Clotilde: Yes, like having a photoshoot at the age of 60 is a good example. I love discovering new things - new foods, new music, new technology, new people, new countries, new experiences. Things I would have never thought about.

Clotilde: I got a business degree in a school also known for its Political Science degree. Even though I appreciated the quality of the education I received, I didn’t enjoy the atmosphere of the school because it was a very individualist ambiance, lacking any team spirit. I majored in marketing.

Clotilde: I worked for 10 years in marketing, advertising and sales, first in the car industry, then in the consumer goods sector. I sincerely enjoyed many aspects of my work but never really envisioned myself both having children and a career. For many years, I was concerned about the responsibilities that come with having children and never truly saw myself balancing both a career and raising a family. I always felt I would have to choose between the two.

Clotilde: Shortly after turning 30 years old, in a matter of a few weeks, not even months, I got married, then got pregnant, then moved to another country. This series of events was not exactly planned, especially the part about deciding to change countries right after finding out that I was pregnant. That meant that I de facto quit my job, not because I was pregnant but because I was moving to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

I waited as much as I could to go back to work, but we needed the money, so I got a marketing job in the banking industry. It didn’t take long for me to realize that being away from my daughter for eight hours a day was painful, and that the benefits of having a career were largely outweighed by the feeling of missing out on her life. So I quit my job and started working part-time as a freelancer in adult French lessons and translation services.

Within a few years, we moved from New York to Miami and I had a second child. I stopped the teaching job and started being active in the volunteering sphere. The US is a country where volunteering is very much part of the culture, and I felt fulfillment in giving my time to local interest or political activism.

Clotilde: I don’t think that I have any specific sense of aesthetics. There are things I love, objects I like, but there is no pattern, no rule. Or maybe there is one rule: I usually don’t link beauty with price.

I am not very interested in brands, and if I agree that some products are of much better quality than others, and I appreciate that, I also consider that a large part of high-end brands’ value is often mostly marketing. I love buying things I fall in love with.

Clotilde: Aging beautifully, to me, means being able to move independently and gracefully for as long as possible. I’ve always taken great pleasure in exercising for its own sake, because it makes me feel good in my body, but the ultimate goal, at this stage of my life, is to stay mobile, agile, and flexible, and sexy.

After that, there are some more cosmetic aspects. I started dyeing my hair the first day I got grey hair, which was at the age of 30, because it is genetic in my family. My mom, my sisters, my cousins all kept their natural hair color at one point. I didn’t. I am not sure when I will give up on that, but I am not ready to do so anytime soon.

I use very little or no makeup. And the sun is my skin’s enemy. I live in Miami and I am very careful about protecting my skin from sun damage.

I enjoy dressing well, and I believe I have my own style - a blend of Miami and French influences, a touch of sexiness when possible, sometimes a little wild, but always, I hope, original and elegant.

But most importantly, I truly believe that a key to aging beautifully is the ability to keep having fun and to keep laughing. Over the past few years, I’ve spent time with many older people, and I’ve come to believe that you grow old the day you stop smiling, the day you stop making jokes or laughing at other people’s jokes. That, to me, is when things begin to change.

Clotilde: I have always been very grateful to have had the choice to step away from work. At times, though, it was difficult to feel like I was truly part of the community.

Volunteering became a natural choice, as it allowed me to keep flexible hours, give back, and feel part of a team. I began with activities connected to my children, such as school and after-school programs, and later moved into political volunteering and advocacy. I see it as a way to influence the world around us and help make it a better place for future generations. I’m not sure we’ve been very successful lately, but it’s important to keep trying.

Clotilde: I think it is a combination of hard work and luck. My husband and I worked as a team for the family. The way he was able to work very hard on his business to give financial security to our family is because I took care of everything else.

The arrangement might be old school, but it worked for us and I never regretted that we made these choices. We both worked hard but we were also lucky that we made the right choices at the right time. And I am very aware and very grateful that we have been lucky.

Clotilde: There is no perfect place on earth, no perfect culture and no perfect country. Leaving my birth country made me very aware of what was good there and allowed me to be less critical of what was wrong.

On the other hand, I am very mindful of what is wonderful in my country of adoption, but I am also aware of what is very wrong. My physical home is in Miami, but France also feels like home and I happily return there regularly. And I love New York and Paris even more than when I used to live there.

Clotilde: That’s an excellent question, and I don’t have the answer yet. I hope to stay in Miami for the rest of my life, but I’m open to the possibility that I may have to move one day, by choice or by necessity. I know it would be very hard to start over at my age, but if I have to, I will.

Clotilde: As you already know I am turning 60 this year and I wanted it to be a very special year. Our two children are adults and live on another continent in two different countries, and even though we had many family reunions, we hadn’t been on a family trip for years.

That’s how the idea of a family trip to Japan came to me. And it was an extraordinary success. We had an incredible time together, the four of us, we reconnected in a very deep and beautiful way.

The fact that we went to Japan made it really special because this is a very unique country with a very different culture. We loved everything: the people, the food, the traditions, the culture, the landscape, and more than anything else, being together like we were when our kids were children.

Clotilde: I feel as French as I do American. I love both countries and both cultures.
I’m not sure where people age best. What is clear, though, is that American society can be a tough one to live in. There is relatively little healthcare protection, workers have limited protection from their employers, and there is often no real safety net if you fall ill.

French society is more protective and more forgiving. American society is very much driven by money — the more you have, the better off you are. For the majority who have less, simply getting by can be difficult.

Clotilde: I am more afraid of illnesses like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s than of death itself. I hope that I would have the courage to make my own choices before I lose myself or before life becomes too diminished. But I am very aware that few people are able to do that, and I don’t know if I would be one of them. I try not to dwell on it too much.

I wish there were something after death. Let’s leave it at that.

Clotilde: You, Ksenia, are the reason why I decided to make this photoshoot. You are an extraordinary person and I felt a very strong connection with you. You found the right words to convince me.

Besides that, I saw it as an opportunity to do something very special for my 60th birthday. Something unique that I had never thought I would do, but also something I secretly hoped I would have done.

And most importantly, it was the perfect occasion to do something fun and playful. And this is exactly what it was.

Clotilde: It is never too late to start a new chapter in your life. Getting older can open the door to something new and completely unexpected.

Don’t be afraid of change, embrace it. Stay curious, stay active, and keep finding joy in the small things. And most importantly, keep laughing.