FASHION Magazine

Carine Roitfeld has finally let the fashion world in on the nitty-gritty of her new magazine, CR Fashion Book (or CR for short). The magazine will feature Carine’s loopy signature (the one we saw in every issue of Vogue Paris) on the cover and have unconventional sections like “Muses” and “Icons.”

Considering she (maybe) got booted from Vogue for a tres risqué editorial featuring little-girl model Thylane Loubry Blondeau, we’d expect Roitfeld to shake things up.  For starters, the magazine will only have spreads and long-format articles. Any front of book shopping, art or event pieces will be put on the website. And even though it’s an English-language magazine, articles will be printed in the author’s native language with translations at the back. Lara Stone writing in Dutch? Pedro Almodóvar in Spanish? It’s an interesting concept to be sure, but we can’t help thinking all the flip-flopping will make us a little dizzy.

Just weeks after banning Dakota Fanning’s ad for Marc Jacobs’ Oh Lola! fragrance because they decided it sexualized children, the British Advertising Standards Agency is now claiming that one of Hailee Steinfeld’s Miu Miu ads is “irresponsible because it depicts a child in an unsafe location.”

The ad in question was shot by Bruce Weber and features Steinfeld sitting on train tracks, which clearly looks staged to evoke her gun-slinging Mattie Ross in True Grit. Seeing as most publications will be moving on to Spring 2012 adverts with their next issues, we’re not exactly sure where the complaint will lead, but it’s safe to say that it’s got the industry riled up over a whole lot of nothing.

With all of the recent controversy over Steinfeld’s and Fanning’s ads and Vogue Paris’s editorial featuring 10-year-old model Thylane Loubry Blondeau this past July, we wonder whether hiring younger models will become out-moded. With Miu Miu’s  recent revealing 34-year-old Guinevere Van Seenus as the star of their new campaign, it’s a possibility.

We’ve all spent time playing dress-up in our mothers’ best dresses and heels, but photos of 10-year-old model Thylane Loubry Blondeau dressed and made-up like a lady in Vogue Paris have got critics in an uproar.

Though the editorial was published months ago, it has only been getting negative attention on our side of the pond recently. Good Morning America aired a segment about the sexualization of young girls, using Loubry Blondeau as a prime example. Since then, the corresponding headlines have been dubbing the photos sexually inappropriate and shocking while blaming everyone, from the magazine to the fashion industry as a whole to Loubry Blondeau’s parents.

While famous models like Kate Moss and Gisele Bündchen started their careers by the time they were only 14, they were always portrayed as adults. Even 13-year-old Elle Fanning’s Marc Jacobs campaign and 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld’s Miu Miu campaign portray them as older and less sexual. What doesn’t sit well with critics is that Loubry Blondeau looks overly suggestive and—above all—undoubtedly like a child.

Is this media backlash refreshingly appropriate, or are critics just looking for a way to brutalize artistic liberties that they don’t understand? Everyone seems to be holding different opinions, but as the French would say, “C’est la vie!”