Tots hit fashion runway in New York

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) – There’s not too many jobs where
missing teeth are a plus.

For child models, gap-toothed grins and bony knees can make
a career, or at least a start of one. Looking for their start
in the world of modeling were dozens of children at Child
magazine’s fashion show, staged on Monday during New York’s
semi-annual gala Fashion Week.

Ranging in age from 4 to 12, the models wore miniature
outfits by such top design names as Bill Blass and Kenneth
Cole, all of which will be auctioned off for charity.

Many of the tiny models smiled, some tentatively, as they
walked down a catwalk normally reserved for experienced
professionals. A few blew kisses, although several looked
frightened and one small boy walked the runway with a tear
running down his face.

The 50 models were selected from 250 candidates by editors
at Child in casting calls in recent days. A few celebrities’
children — those of rapper 50 Cent and of music producer
Russell Simmons and wife Kimora Lee Simmons — were thrown into
the mix, along with actress Lindsay Lohan’s younger sister
Aliana and brother Dakota.

“It’s basically about personality, being comfortable in
clothes and not being forced to be here,” said Gay Morris
Empson, a Child editor helping select models at one audition.
“It’s really about being comfortable with themselves.”

Sex, for once, doesn’t sell. Not making the cut was any
girl who struck a grown-up model pose, swinging her hips and
jutting her pelvis.

“Above all, it’s kids not looking sexy,” said Empson. “No
JonBenets.”

The still-unsolved murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in
1996 triggered shudders as the public saw photos of the tiny
blond girl in heavy makeup and coiffed hair competing in
children’s beauty pageants.

CHILD MODELING CRITICS

Plenty of criticism of child modeling remains among
developmental experts and academics.

“It’s disturbing that we’re presenting children as tiny
adults. They’re like little puppets or dolls,” said Suzanne
Ferriss, co-editor of the book “On Fashion.”

“It’s for the adults. It’s not for the children,” she said.
“There’s something disturbing about co-opting them and making
them a spectacle for our own amusement.”

New Yorker Isla Ng, 11, was chosen by juicemaker Welch’s to
be its company spokeschild when she was 6 years old. Looking
back, she says now, she didn’t realize at the time that she
would be appearing in television commercials shown around the
world.

“That’s probably why I was good at it,” she said. “I was
just drinking juice.”

At 11, Cameron Carr of Harlem, who appeared in the Child
show, has a huge portfolio of print advertising work. “What he
gets from the experience is great. It does nothing but
complement what he is,” said his mother, Christina
Clements-Carr.

But working with child models has its quirks, Empson said.

Little boys often don’t like to work near little girls, she
has found, and children won’t wear just anything.

“You can’t just say, ‘Squeeze into this size shoe,”‘ she
said. “If it’s the wrong size, they won’t wear it.”

For most children, of course, becoming a successful model
is unrealistic. Ng was chosen from some 1,300 candidates by
Welch’s.

But at 5, Diani Ferguson, who has commercial print ads and
the Child runway show in her portfolio, does not plan to be a
model when she grows up.

“I want to be God when I grow up,” she explained at her
audition. “He helps us.”