Cindy Crawford's Modeling Advice to Daughter Kaia Gerber
"I'll tease her, and say, ‘You have my old hair. Give it back!’" joked Crawford.
— -- Kaia Gerber is only 14, but already starting to turn heads like her supermodel mom Cindy Crawford.
But venturing into the world of modeling at such a young age worries Crawford, 49.
“Today, models are expected to be so tiny and I worry about that for her, because that was never my natural body type and I don’t think it’ll be hers either. Still, I’ll say to her, ‘Enjoy carbs while you can!’" she told NET-A-PORTER.COM’s The Edit.
She continued, "Kaia’s blossoming into such a beautiful young woman and I really want to let her shine. I don’t want her to feel in competition with me, although I’ll tease her, and say, ‘You have my old hair – give it back!’ Or, ‘Give me back my legs!’ But she’ll be fine… She’s much more together and worldly than I was at her age.”
Crawford also spoke about the status of modeling today and how most models are now cross-over stars.
“They had better learn to sing and act, too, because it’s not really enough to just be a model anymore. Anna Wintour was the one who started the trend of putting celebrities on covers and in the big campaigns," she said. "Then everyone followed suit, so now they want stars like Kendall Jenner and Taylor Swift. They want people with a following, and social media has helped because models like Cara [Delevingne], Coco[Rocha] and Gigi [Hadid] can have their own voices and talk to fans directly. There are more pathways available to them than we had.”
Crawford, who is turning 50 in February, also spoke about aging gracefully.
"Of course I’m different,” she said. “And I don’t mind being different. So I decided that, rather than run and hide from the fact that I’m turning 50, I would embrace it ... And who knew that modeling would have got me all the way to 49? I remember thinking at age 25 that I had, at most, five years left."
"Now, if I’m on a beach in a bikini where there might be paparazzi, I’d definitely put a coverup on. There are good and bad angles and I don’t want to subject myself to that. It’s hurtful," she added. "Fashion and makeup should just be for fun. And somehow it has moved away from that. These days, images that are meant to inspire and make women feel happy to be women sometimes have the opposite effect."