Marc Jacobs' Pretty Baby

 

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In keeping with his definition of youthful, romantic chic, Marc Jacobs delivered a vivid, sprightly women's line for spring of 2007. Understandably, he saw it only fitting to accompany the line with an ad campaign featuring one of the freshest faces in Hollywood.

So whom did he choose to embody his latest line of women's clothing? Dakota Fanning.

Certainly Fanning is no ordinary 12-year-old. The petite actress has proven star power, already making about $3 million per film. She's been honing her acting chops since she had baby teeth. Currently, she's appearing in "Charlotte's Web." Next year, you can catch her as the star of "Alice in Wonderland."

And beginning this February, the child actress will grace the ad pages of edgy fashion magazines W and Vogue. Yes, that's grown-up Vogue -- not Teen Vogue, where she previously appeared in an editorial spread. And it's no matter that she recently got braces. She'll be wearing couture from the Marc Jacobs collection, in sizes made specially for the photo shoot.

"Marc loves her character and thinks she is beautiful and a great actress," Marc Jacobs president Robert Duffy was quoted as saying. "He loved the idea of having this young, small girl in the clothes, and we made them in her size to shoot her in."

Dakota Fanning Spins 'Charlotte's Web' Watch Video

Joining Seventh Avenue and Sunset Boulevard

Undoubtedly, consumers have become accustomed to seeing beautiful, young stars cavorting in beautiful, expensive outfits. It's a very deliberate partnership between Hollywood and the fashion world.

Teen starlets can be quite influential with trend-hungry consumers -- not only adults and the masses of teenagers, but also with the younger demographic known as 'tweens. Marc Jacobs may like Dakota Fanning personally, but as a businessman, he also recognizes a chance to expose a much younger crowd to his clothing and accessories.

A smattering of Internet pundits and bloggers have reacted with surprise to the ad campaign, images of which have cropped up on several fashion-related blogs. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton has opined that the campaign "is wrong on so many levels." Another blogger commented, "I don't want little girls selling me clothes. This new kiddie trend is so wrong."

However, Bob Garfield, editor-at-large of Advertising Age, said the photos he's seen "don't strike me as remotely objectionable. It's not erotic. It's not sexual. It's dress-up. It's goofy."

Garfield has not reviewed the entire ad campaign and has only seen the online images, one of which shows a barefoot Fanning wearing an elaborate white party dress. The other has her making a funny face while clad in a white fur jacket.

On a hypothetical level, Garfield said, "if [another case] were overtly or implicitly sexual, that would be gross. Then it crosses the line." Continuing his broader discussion, Garfield noted, "It's hard to summon outrage on the issue of sexualizing children as long as the children are celebrities. They either are already so contaminated, or are demigods who cannot be harmed -- because after all they're not real people."

Calvins and Isaacs

This is not the first time a major fashion house has turned to a very young star for a bit of fresh marketing appeal. In 1980, Calvin Klein ads featured a rosy cheeked, 15-year-old Brooke Shields famously cooing "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins." Jaws dropped, but the jeans flew off store shelves.