This Milan Fashion Week Model Is Only 14
SEPTEMBER 22, 2014 @ 4:12 PM
By Megan Friedman
By Megan Friedman
Roos Abels is one of the most talked-about models from Milan Fashion Week – but not just for her blue eyes or runway walk. It's because she's the age of a high-school freshman.
Abels caught the fashion world's eye after she walked the runway for Prada's spring/summer 2015 show last Thursday, and the show is seen as one of the highlights every year. She then appeared in the Giamba show Saturday. According to Fashionista, a cached version of her Instagram profile displays her age as 14, though that's been scrubbed since.
Many in the fashion industry, especially in the U.S., frown upon grown-up labels using models so young. The CFDA's health guidelines urge designers to not hire models under 16 for runway shows, and London's Association of Model Agents has promised not to do so. But Prada has a reputation for working with young models. In 2011, Prada worked with Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld for its Miu Miu label when she was Abels's age. The ad was banned in Britain for being "irresponsible" and allegedly suggesting youth suicide.
Abels caught the fashion world's eye after she walked the runway for Prada's spring/summer 2015 show last Thursday, and the show is seen as one of the highlights every year. She then appeared in the Giamba show Saturday. According to Fashionista, a cached version of her Instagram profile displays her age as 14, though that's been scrubbed since.
Many in the fashion industry, especially in the U.S., frown upon grown-up labels using models so young. The CFDA's health guidelines urge designers to not hire models under 16 for runway shows, and London's Association of Model Agents has promised not to do so. But Prada has a reputation for working with young models. In 2011, Prada worked with Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld for its Miu Miu label when she was Abels's age. The ad was banned in Britain for being "irresponsible" and allegedly suggesting youth suicide.
And in 2010, they enlisted 15-year-old Lindsey Wixson for a Miu Miu campaign, calling her the "embodiment of a free-spirit on the cusp of womanhood."
To be clear, none of this is illegal. The Telegraph adds that there is no law that stops designers from hiring 14-year-olds for Milan Fashion Week. And it's legal even in the States. According to New York'sChild Model Act, which was passed last year, models under 18 just needs to obtain a Child Performer Permit before walking the runway, though the law also offers them protections like curfews and financial trusts.
The Model Alliance, a nonprofit labor group for models working in the U.S., expressed outrage about Abels's hiring in a statement:
At the Model Alliance, we are troubled when brands cast children to model clothing that is marketed to adults.
The modeling industry is a grown-up business with grown-up pressures that most children do not have the maturity to handle. Long working hours, sexual harassment, work for "trade" instead of cash, and pressures to sign one-sided agency contracts and to drop out of school are all common problems in the modeling industry.
Teenaged girls have a different body type than grown women. When brands cast minors to model their clothing, they are promoting an adolescent ideal of beauty. This adolescent ideal is unrealistic and unhealthy both for the models to try to maintain and for consumers to try to achieve.
Both Prada and Abels's agency, Brave Models Milan, have not returned requests for comment.
Source: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/fashion/news/a31356/this-milan-fashion-week-model-is-only-14/?click=_lpTrnsprtr_11
The Model Alliance, a nonprofit labor group for models working in the U.S., expressed outrage about Abels's hiring in a statement:
At the Model Alliance, we are troubled when brands cast children to model clothing that is marketed to adults.
The modeling industry is a grown-up business with grown-up pressures that most children do not have the maturity to handle. Long working hours, sexual harassment, work for "trade" instead of cash, and pressures to sign one-sided agency contracts and to drop out of school are all common problems in the modeling industry.
Teenaged girls have a different body type than grown women. When brands cast minors to model their clothing, they are promoting an adolescent ideal of beauty. This adolescent ideal is unrealistic and unhealthy both for the models to try to maintain and for consumers to try to achieve.
Both Prada and Abels's agency, Brave Models Milan, have not returned requests for comment.
Source: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/fashion/news/a31356/this-milan-fashion-week-model-is-only-14/?click=_lpTrnsprtr_11