Kids on catwalk
Parents say modeling boosts children’s esteem, but concerns remain
When she works the catwalk, she seems like another person, like an icy beauty.” Jiang Shuxiao , mother of Zhang Mengyao, a child model
Zheng Xinyan, a 5-year-old girl from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, earns money more quickly than her father by modeling clothes and posing for photos for online retailers. She can earn about 200 yuan ($28) per photo and model dozens of outfits a day, which far outstrips her father’s earning power.
A brief introduction on umoer, a website for agents, claims that Zhang has a year’s experience in the modeling trade and has mastered multiple styles, such as “preppy”, “lady”, “leisure” and “street fashion”.
Her father, Zheng Xu, who owns a clothes shop, said standards for child models are not high. As long as a child looks cute, he or she can become a model.
The 27-year-old is one of many parents who have grabbed a share of the booming child model market. According to a report by the Forward Industry Institute, a consultancy in Beijing, the children’s wear market in China was worth 147.4 billion yuan by 2016, a rise of 7.43 percent from the previous year.
Room for growth
The report predicted that with the second-child policy taking effect and the nation’s consumption upgrade, the market will grow at about 5 percent annually until 2022, so there is still plenty of room for development.
Adorable children can easily attract attention, especially online, and an outfit can become a hot seller, sometimes shifting as many as 200,000 units, after being modeled by a star child.
In August, Jiang Shuxiao shot a video of her 6-year-old daughter attending the final of a modeling contest and uploaded it to Kuaishou, a widely used short-feature app.
To her surprise, her fan numbers rose from 28 to 80 in just a few hours, and within half a day the figure had hit about 1,000.
Jiang said: “I just shot a short video casually. She (her daughter) did nothing in the video — she was just dressed in an evening gown. I couldn’t believe that for the next five days, my fan numbers on the app rose by 1,000 a day. I felt happy because it proved my daughter is cute.”
The flourishing children’s wear industry and the kids’ star effect have given birth to a commercial chain for young models.
Kidstar, a training school for child models headquartered in Hangzhou, has thousands of students, even though it charges 30,000 yuan for a 24-month course. The classes are so popular that the school is opening branches in other provinces.
“A child can graduate after a twoyear course, and we have various commercial opportunities such as model shows, posing for photos for Taobao retailers and even movie roles. We offer agents the chance to represent the best children, which means they have more opportunities,” said a member of the client service staff, who declined to give her name.
According to the staff member, children ages 3 to 15 who are 95 to 120 centimeters tall are the most sought-after models. Some have become so popular that they are too busy to complete their courses at Kidstar and have already earned far more than their tuition fee.
Concerns
However, allowing children to work and earn as models has triggered heated debate about the effect on their physical and mental well-being.
In a video made by Kankan News in 2017, Ye Zuming, a then-11-year-old model for Taobao, said he earned about 800,000 yuan a year, adding that his motivation was “Everyone wants to live a wealthy life”.
The Chinese-Serbian boy said: “If I am lucky enough, I want to be a movie star. To be an internet celebrity would also be OK for me. It would be nice to marry a beautiful wife like Dilraba Dilmurat (a well-known Chinese actress).”
Another model, Gu Ge, who was 9 when the video was shot, said she had to satisfy all the customers with good photos, and her ambition was to become an actress.
The video also showed children changing outfits at an outdoor shoot during winter, which disturbed many netizens.
The five-minute video received 30 million views and provoked a raft of criticism, with many observers commenting that the child models seemed calculating and overly mature.
“They have become tools for their parents to make money, and their moral values have become distorted,” one commentator wrote.
Regulations
Despite the outcry, parents have the law on their side. Child labor regulations state that people younger than 16 are allowed to work in the arts and entertainment industry as long as they have their parents’ permission.
Li Haiyun, an associate professor of education at Shanxi Normal University in Linfen, Shanxi province, told The Paper that using children as models is not considered an abuse if the child’s health is respected and guaranteed and their parents provide positive moral guidance.
Reports claim that some parents force their children to work overtime and use them to make a fortune, which deprives them of an innocent childhood. However, many parents say they simply want to give their child a good training for work and boost their self-esteem.
For example, Zheng Xu said he allowed his 5-year-old daughter to do modeling work for Taobao because he wanted to improve her confidence.
“She is too shy, so interacting with photographers she doesn’t know may help her to make progress. Being a model can also help her develop good deportment. She’s so young that she knows nothing about this work. Sometimes she is uncooperative and says she feels happier in the kindergarten, but I have to apply some pressure to train her and make her elegant,” he said.
“I won’t give her too much work or send her to too many modeling classes. It depends on her preferences, after all.”
Another parent, who only gave her surname as Wang, said she wanted her 3-year-old girl to understand the rules of the game and realize that working is not always easy.
“Her work usually lasts an hour, during which she may wear about eight outfits. Although she complains of being tired, I need to ensure that she knows she will only get what she wants by hard work,” she said.
“By making money, she can feel a sense of honor and improve her selfconfidence. She can manage her wages by herself, and I won’t meddle at all.”
Development
Jiang Shuxiao signed up her daughter, Zhang Mengyao, for modeling courses and contests because the little girl enjoys the feeling of being a model.
“When she works the catwalk, she seems like another person, like an icy beauty. I wonder how this happened; maybe she is really into this and has a gift?” she said.
Enrolling the girl for modeling contests and a yearlong course has cost Jiang about 150,000 yuan, nearly half her annual salary.
“I will try my best to provide her with the conditions to develop her talent and prepare for a better future. I won’t let her work right now, because she is too young. However, if she gets a really good opportunity, I will let her take it because it will help her,” she said.
“Mengyao is lucky because many (online) fans like her. In the future, I want her to live a worthwhile life and step onto a bigger stage.”