Cindy Crawford’s 10-year-old daughter, Kaia Gerber, made her modeling debut on Wednesday in the first ad campaign for Young Versace, the fashion house’s new line for kids ages 0-12. Gerber appears in a black leather miniskirt embellished with Versace’s signature emblem, a white T-shirt, and a cropped leather jacket. She looks, in a way, pretty badass. She’s wearing black socks, rolled slightly at the ankle, under sandals, and the image accentuates her long legs, which she’s surely inherited from her mother.
“Like her mother, Kaia has a very special gift,” creative director Donatella Versace said in a statement. “Having Cindy on-set for the shoot took me back to all the amazing Avedon shoots we worked on together. It was such a special treat watching Kaia walk in her mother’s footsteps!” Crawford, who broke into the industry in 1983 at the age of 17, said she supported her daughter. “Being on-set with my daughter watching her in front of the camera was a fantastic experience,” she said. “I am so proud of her.”
The past year has seen a rise in number of pre-teen models in the public eye. There was Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau, the 10-year-old French sensation who began on the Jean Paul Gaultier runway at the age of 4. Then there was Lottie Moss, Kate Moss’s 13-year-old half-sister, whose test shoot with a photographer was recently revealed. Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes Leon, 14, began shilling for her Material Girl line at Macy’s, and Elle Fanning, 13, became a red-carpet staple last year.
