Fashion pages that disturb: little girls and high heels, little girls with adult attitudes, the era of lolitas…
Lolita, Stanley Kubrick
For some years now, debates have been raging around the hypersexualization of young girls: the organization of miss contests, fake tans, too much make-up, dresses that are too short. Aside from the problems associated with pageants – competitions that focus on physical values – fashion’s relationship with youth also plays with boundaries and troubles.
Often used as an argument in defense of the lack of morality in mini-miss contests, the organizers point out that the pages of the biggest magazines feature young girls as young as 16, and no one finds anything to complain about. This is not entirely true: the age of models has always been a subject of debate, and one that has given rise to positions taken by various fashion professionals.
Model trends are never the same. Agencies look for faces with hard or youthful features, but it’s true that a modeling career starts young, and sometimes even very young – too young?
In 2012, Vogue committed to using only models over the age of 16 on its pages. The same rule applies to fashion shows. Yet Lily Rose Deep has just been photographed by Karl Lagarfeld for the latest Chanel campaign, and models like 15-year-old Stella Lucia are the new muses of designers.
Lily Rose Depp
The word “muse” is not without importance. Fashion is an art. It’s not there to look at age, skin color or gender, and to be the standard-bearer of moral values. It is inspired by muses whose beauties correspond to the canons of the moment. This is not a way of clearing this universe, but rather a reminder that it is dedicated to artistic functions, appealing to dreams while at the same time being caught up in the vagaries of the times and the commercial machinery. How should magazines position themselves?
A textbook case:
Vogue December / January 2011 issue. The death knell for Carine Roitfield. Controversial photos. For the gift section, young girls are dressed in evening gowns, heels and make-up. Nothing of their age? Let’s go back to the previous sentence: “young girls are dressed up”, how about replacing it with disguised. The issue was a Christmas special. And what is this holiday if not a reminder of childhood, the impatience of discovering presents, a dreamlike magic that brings back childhood memories. Let yourself be intoxicated by the glitter, dream of finery, put on Mum’s heels and try on make-up “like the grown-ups”. Child’s play that’s neither creepy nor shocking. Nothing unhealthy …
While we have a code of ethics, we mustn’t turn fashion into something it isn’t: a detractor that encourages “youthism” and the hypersexualization of young girls. Caught up in much broader trends, fashion is the expression of trends and of what drives its era. An element that reflects the values of today’s society. If mini-miss contests are trying to infiltrate France, if supermarkets are selling size 33 pumps, should we blame fashion?
Without turning a blind eye to the influence of this universe on our daily lives, it remains to be measured. The mini-miss over-bronzers from the depths of Arizona have surely not seen Carine Roitfeld’s editorials, Ricardo Tisci’s muses or Sally Mann’s photographs… Don’t confuse the vulgar with the artistic, beware of confusing …
These are just some of the questions whose answers are far from self-evident. The role of fashion? I’d stick to making people dream and offering the best, a know-how of exception and prestige: to shake up the gloom of everyday life.
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