A frequent purveyor of fashion magazines, it never donned on me before. The focus for me was, of course, the clothes. But the more and more fashion editorials you thumb through, the better you are at identifying the models and clothes featured. So while looking over the pages of British Vogue, I remembered the model used in one of its editorials, Lindsay Wixson. “I remember her!” I said to myself, “she’s on the cover of style.com/print and wasn’t she the face of Prada at one point?”. Naturally, I looked up her credentials and was in sheer shock and awe when I learned of her age. 16. Yes, that’s right 16 years of age. The Prada print ads I was referring to, I saw last year. I remember my boyfriend had caught a glimpse and asked me if the model was a little girl. She might as well have been.

The aforementioned anecdote bears the question; why are children modelling clothes made for today’s woman? What do I mean by “today’s woman”? In the interest of this post, she is affluent, over 30 years of age, has a thriving career and gracefully balances her work and family life. She is not 16 years of age. Or 13 for that matter (yes I’m talking about Elle Fanning). Granted, Marc by Marc Jacobs is targeted to a younger generation, but not 13 years young! Doesn’t it just get your knickers in a knot? The world was up on arms, earlier this year, when French Vogue released a full-length editorial featuring a make-up donning, provocatively posed 10-year-old girl. The reasons behind the editorial? To make a statement against the fashion world’s beauty idealism? Perhaps.

It’s been famously written that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Indeed it is. Regrettably, many look to society to shape their ideals of what beauty is (read: should be) – expectations become unfulfilled, travesty ensues, inno is lost. I would hope that in 2011, today’s woman has a healthy take on what beauty is or should be. I hope the same for their younger counterparts: today’s woman of the future.

Tell us, what do you think? Sound off below.

^AM