Think of the children

As a former chiffon technician (okay, I worked for a designer of scarves and other wildly overpriced accessories for a few years), I still follow the fashion world.
The biggest story of the week has revolved around the model Monika Jagaciak, otherwise known as ‘Jac’. She’s beautiful. The camera loves her. She’s a Next Big Thing.
She’s 14 years old.

This last detail has sent anyone who gives a shit into a tizzy (really not that difficult). It’s also made me ponder the perils of child exploitation, which has become a global spectator sport, whether we like it or not.
No one ever thinks of the Olsen twins in this context – they were forced to play the same detestably adorable child on that wretched sitcom for years. Imagine what that did to their heads. Or Michael Jackson, a prodigious talent turned, well… you’ve seen it. Or “the fat kid from Hey Dad”. He’s quite possibly rocking back and forth in a darkened corner of an otherwise empty room as I type.

Of all the precious tots, though, I can’t help but think of Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci. I can only vaguely recall the 1976 Olympics, but I do remember the cries of ‘10! 10! 10!’ when she won a perfect score for her uneven bar routine. I might even have done that little hands-up ‘ta dah!’ pose they all do at the end. In any case, Nadia, who became an international darling, was 14 at the time.
Did anyone make a fuss? Nup.

So back to Jac. She’s Polish. She was probably really, really looking forward to attending Fashion Week in Sydney. But she’s 14, she’s being exploited and she looks, you know, kind of sexually attractive. That makes people feel very, very uncomfortable.
So she’s been dropped.

All she has to do is stand still in front of a photographer and stroll up and down a raised platform a few times.
No one is demanding that she spends hours every day practicing torturous physical feats. She doesn’t have to backflips on a balance beam. She hasn't, as far as I know, been squeezed into an unflattering leotard.
What’s the problem?