Young Morgan Featherstone and her mum defend pre-teen modelling, following the international outrage over a 12-year-old model as the face of fashion week.
Morgan is a model child. Blonde, leggy and blue-eyed, she’s polite, kind, studious, and popular with schoolmates and teachers.
A typical 12-year-old, she’s crazy about wildlife, adores her pet dogs, admires Bindi Irwin, loves playing sport, laughs at The Simpsons and still likes hanging out with her parents.
She’s also the girl who created global shockwaves when, aged only eight, she posed for photos in sultry, Lolita-style make-up that portrayed her as a pouting sex kitten.
Today, modelling at least once a week, Morgan is a comparatively grown-up Year 8 student. Her part-time job has earned a healthy trust fund and flown her around the world. She has met Cameron Diaz, Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan, Cold Chisel, Delta Goodrem and Kiss. She even appeared in a Gene Simmons video clip! But for Morgan, it’s not about fame or money.
“I like getting dressed up, getting the shots done, seeing the result,” Morgan beams, cosmetic-free and chilling out at home in Brisbane, her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
“Mum has always asked if I wanted to stop or carry on, so she’s never pushed me.
“I wouldn’t want to say anything that makes people angry, but I really like modelling. It’s just so much fun, and my friends all think it’s cool. Nobody has ever been bitchy.”
Not, at least, until the provocative child-woman image of young Morgan — image of young Morgan — for an ad commissioned by a Taiwanese pool manufacturer — sparked a fiery debate about sexploitation of under-age models.
Psychologists and industry spokesmen criticised her parents. The Federal Minister for Children and Youth Affairs waded in with a heartfelt plea, “For goodness sake, let a child be a child, rather than make them grow up too fast with sexually explicit clothing.”
Four years down the track and Morgan’s mum, Virgin Blue flight attendant Amy Dean, hoped the family had put that torrid time behind them.
But with the recent choice of 12-year-old Maddison Gabriel as the face of Gold Coast Fashion Week, the row has reignited…
For the full story, see this week’s Woman’s Day (on-sale October 8, 2007)
Your say: Is 12 too young to be a model? Leave your comments below…
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