Hollywood Mom Blog

9 Yr Old Disney Star’s Clothing Line deemed the “Apocolypse” by Perez Hilton, “Perverse” by The Daily Mail & “Too Racy & Sexy” by Celebrity Stylist Shaye Strager

Posted on 08. Feb, 2010 by Editor Tracy Bobbitt.

“If babies are wearing this crap right out of the bomb, there is no hope for the youth of America.”

- Blogger Perez HIlton on the Emily Grace Reeves collection by Ooh La La Couture

I’d like to preface this post by saying never in my many years of working in children’s fashion have I witnessed such an enormous backlash against a children’s clothing company or a clothing line as what you are about to read.  This makes Charlie’s Sheen’s ill-fated and poorly received clothing line Sheen Kidz seem like the front runner of fashion week by comparison.  It’s important to note that this is not the fault of these young children, but rather some poor decisions on the part of their parents and their management teams. The poor kid just turned 9 about three weeks ago – Consider this a cautionary tale…

Ooh La La! I smell a pint-sized scandal.  Nine year old, up-and-coming Disney Star Emily Grace Reeves and her namesake children’s clothing line “The Emily Grace Collection” designed by Ooh! La La Couture has come under a hailstorm of fire from the press for being too adult (in a promiscuous sense) and is being likened to designs by a well-known online lingerie brand by several high-profile critics. The Emily Grace Collection is named after “Hannah Montana” actor Emily Grace Reaves, who helps design the line. The line is currently scheduled to debut on February 14, 2010 at Fred Segal.

Her friend Noah Cyrus, 10, (Miley’s younger sister) has also helped promote the collection in photos and online videos. Noah is Disney superstar Miley Cyrus’ younger sister.

According to the official Ooh La La Couture press release announcing the line:

Ooh! La, La! Couture is proud to present our new exclusive Emily Grace Collection, inspired by 8-year old actress Emily Grace Grace Reaves (best known for her role as “Cindy Lou” in Hannah Montana: The Movie). The collection’s trendy, sweet, yet edgy feel, is reminiscent of Emily’s true personality. She is collaborating with Ooh! La, La! Couture designers to create versatile styles that can be worn with sweet ballerina slippers, funky sneakers or paired with lace stockings and boots for more of a rock and roll look. Emily’s collection will appeal not just to little girls—the line also has an exclusive Teen Collection available to a size 14.

But the similarity of the clothes to adult lingerie is undeniable, say critics. Gossip blogger Perez Hilton likened the news of line’s “release to the apocalypse,” while the Daily Mail called the designs “perverse.”

Promotional materials for the line feature Emily Grace Reaves and Noah Cyrus modeling the clothing with grown up looks and poses. In one image the girls are allegedly seen surrounding what appears to be a stripper pole (below), and another shows the children posing in leopard mini-skirts that bear a striking resemblance to an adult lingerie piece from LingerieDiva.com. Readers may recall the Miley particiapted in her own Stripper Pole drama at the MTV Awards last fall.

A rep for Ooh! La La, Couture told Fox411.com that the clothing line has absolutely nothing to do with lingerie. “Whoever started this rumor grossly misinformed the public, press and media,” Terri Tex of T2 Public Relations told Fox. “I don’t even know where that word or idea of lingerie came from.” Maybe she hasn’t seen these photos?  Tex further states that while Noah Cyrus is a “big supporter” of the line and Emily’s best friend, she is not involved in the partnership: “The collaboration with the collection is between Ooh! La La, Couture and Emily Grace Reaves only.”

Celebrity Stylist Shaye Strager, who has worked with stars Brooke Shields and Helen Hunt, told Fox411.com that the fabric and designs are simply “too racy and sexy for the target audience. Capitalizing on celebrity style has been a huge hot-button issue for fashion and there should be something special about ‘coming of age’ and being able to wear more grown-up clothing,” she said. “But typically, girls begin to experiment with this [more risque dress] in high school … because these girls are so young, I think they are crossing the line here. Bottom line, the clothing is not appropriate for children of that age,” Strager added.

This is not the first time Noah Cyrus and her parents have come under fire for her choices in clothes.

At a Halloween party last year, Noah wore red lipstick, a lacy black dress and lace-up knee-high boots. At another event, she wore deep v-neck Ramones halter-top. Her sister Miley posed nude from the waist up for Vanity Fair magazine when she was 15, which her father took particular heat for as he was there for at least parts of the photo shoot. Reps for Cyrus’ parents did not respond to request for comment.

According to Dr. Georgia Witkin, a professor of psychology at Mt. Sinai and a Fox News contributor, the grown-up images the girls are displaying speak to the problem many child stars face.

“When a child mimics the look of a teenager or an adult, they are skipping an entire developmental stage. Most of the values that kids learn in order to be able to handle the challenges of adult life are during the ages of 5-12,” Witkin said. “This is when they learn how to judge and how they are perceived. If they begin to believe that their value is based on their looks or their sexiness, it sends a completely wrong message.”

Witkin said that it is not the clothing that is necessarily the problem, but the potential emotional repercussions of growing up too fast. “Developmentally, they can’t feel what it means to want to be attractive to the opposite sex. For them, it’s dress up,” Witkin said. “But when they dress like an older sibling, there is the danger that there will be emotions that go undeveloped and unexplored.”

Several years ago a report commissioned by the respected Australian Institute coined a new phrase to describe the commercial sexualisation of children: “corporate pedophilia.” Lead researcher Emma Rush wrote: ‘Images of sexualised children are becoming increasingly common in advertising and marketing material.  ”Children who appear aged 12 years and under, particularly girls, are dressed, posed and made up in the same way as sexy adult models.”

For more information about this probem, read Feminist writer Natasha Walter’s account of the hypersexualisation of children, “Living Dolls: The Return Of Sexism.”

Sources: Fox News; Coco Perez; PerezHilton.com; You Tube, Ooh La La Couture Website; The Daily Mail

Continue Reading