10-Year-Old Model's Grown-Up Look: High Fashion or High Risk?
Aug. 4, 2011— -- Thylane Loubry Blondeau, a 10-year-old model with a sultry stare beyond her years, had the fashion industry drooling after posing for French Vogue. But photos of the Parisian preteen, whose lanky body and gap-toothed pout bring to mind full-grown size-zero magazine cover girls, have reignited the debate over the sexualization of young girls.
Wearing makeup, high heels and haute couture, Blondeau looks a far cry from a typical 10-year-old. Even in childish smocks and cotton tees, her expressions are oddly adult -- a product, perhaps, of living half her young life in the fashion world (she reportedly hit the runway for Jean-Paul Gauthier at age 5). And some say Blondeau's grown-up beauty is giving other young girls unhealthy ideas about how they should look.
"We don't want kids to grow up too fast," said Shari Miles-Cohen, senior director of women's programs for the American Psychological Association. "We want them to be able to develop physically, emotionally, psychologically and socially at appropriate rates for their age."
French Vogue provocatively poked at this principle, running photos of Blondeau and two other tweens playing designer dress-up captioned with, "Quel maquillage à quel âge?" -- What makeup at what age? But a shot of Blondeau wearing a red dress and stilettos lying on a tiger skin rug had critics crying foul.
Thylane Loubry Blondeau's grown-up look is creating a stir.
Blondeau is not the first mini model to stir up the sexualization debate. In 2007, a 13-year-old Dakota Fanning posed in a controversial campaign for Marc Jacobs. Now 13-year-old Elle Fanning has followed in her sister's footsteps as the face of Jacobs' Fall 2011 campaign.
