Is the Young Versace ad starring Cindy Crawford’s daughter too much, too young?
Lucy Handley is a key member of the Marketing Week features team and has also worked in advertising agencies so can bring a unique perspective to client-agency relationships when writing on this topic.
Kaia Gerber, the ten-year-old daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, is starring in Young Versace’s first advertising campaign.
The clothes are grown up, she’s wearing a black leather jacket and very short pleated skirt which flares out at the sides. They are aimed at children up to age 12, but put them on a grown woman in this pose and they’d definitely have a sexy edge.
This is in the same week that the government is pushing its parent complaint website ParentPort and is right in the middle of ongoing arguments about the sexualisation of children.
Many children feature in advertising for clothing brands, but type ‘children’s clothes’ into Google and you get pretty dresses from H&M, Next and Boden featuring bright colours, balloons and beaches.
Put these images next to the Young Versace campaign and it does start to look like Kaia is being exposed to too much and too young.
The opposing argument of course is that this is completely on-brand for parent Versace’s rich customers who want the bling and glamour of the fashion label to be available to their offspring. It’s an image that is meant to stand out and make the brand desirable.
But for me, being on-brand is all very well, but this is a step too far.
What do you think?
