Take a look at the magazine below, how old do you think the cover model is?
Sixteen? Maybe 18?
She’s 13.
As Thylane Blondeau’s first ‘grown up’ cover, you could be forgiven for thinking this is her first foray into fashion.
It’s not.
She controversially appeared in the Tom Ford-edited issue of Vogue Paris at age 10, heavily made up, wearing gold heels and posing on an animal rug on top of a bed.
The beauty-focused editorial saw the magazine, and the wider fashion industry, accused of sexualizing children and sparked a debate about how young is too young to model.
She also appeared ‘topless’ in Vogue Enfants, the magazine’s supplement.
Blondeau has since starred in campaigns for Lacoste and walked the runway for Jean Paul Gaultier but it’s her appearance on the cover of French magazine Jalouse (though age-appropriate in a jumper and minimal makeup) that has reignited the debate once again.
The magazine coverline proclaims her to be the “New Kate Moss” but it’s a label not everyone is comfortable with.
Though Kate Moss was discovered at age 14, and began her modelling career when Corrine Day shot her for (sadly defunct) British magazine The Face at age 16, the bigger picture problem here is that by hailing Blondeau as the ‘next’ something, it’s implying that she is a model to watch.
Top Comments
Well really it makes sense...the fashion industry makes/markets clothes for women with the figures of children, so why pay an adult model when they can pay half price for a child who wears the same sized clothes?
Wrong...just so wrong, it should be outlawed right now. Nothing can justify this.