PARIS, France - Tall and dapper at 78, Yvon Castaing is not your average grandpa: the Frenchman is a professional model, a second career he stumbled on 15 years ago after retiring from his first.

Advertising used to focus almost exclusively on the young, the nubile, the energetic. But as Western populations age better and better, models over 60 –
sometimes way over 60 – have become increasingly bankable.

Castaing is, well, straight from central casting, the perfect gentleman in a blue-and-white striped shirt matched to his blue eyes, and as crisp as his diction is clear.

“I am a dandy, I admit it,” he says disarmingly.

Born into a large family in 1932, Castaing started his career with a brief stint in the hotel business but found his calling selling perfume at the esteemed French luxury house Hermes.

“I was a good salesman,” he said with a smile. “I guess that’s why I also like modelling – you have to sell yourself.”

His new career started in 1994 after a chance encounter with Beatrice Costantini, an actress who also heads Agence Di, a Paris-based agency specialised in actors that offers a large selection of seniors.

“When I started my agency there was a demand for grandmother types – little old ladies with grey hair, tiny grannies who made jam and biscuits,” Costantini told AFP.

“But over the years the traditional grandma is no longer true to type. People now want healthy dynamic seniors,” explains Costantini.

Castaing had long flirted with the idea of becoming an actor, even taking lessons and appearing in a few amateur plays. So when Costantini asked if he wanted to cast for an advertisement, it didn’t seem like too big a leap.

Over the next couple of years, he had walk-on roles in movies for Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese and French director Claude Lelouch, but today he only does commercials and print ads.