They said/We said: We weigh in on Hailee Steinfeld’s banned Miu Miu ad

Photography by Bruce Weber
Photography by Bruce Weber

Just weeks after banning Dakota Fanning’s ad for Marc Jacobs’ Oh Lola! fragrance because they decided it sexualized children, the British Advertising Standards Agency is now claiming that one of Hailee Steinfeld’s Miu Miu ads is “irresponsible because it depicts a child in an unsafe location.”

The ad in question was shot by Bruce Weber and features Steinfeld sitting on train tracks, which clearly looks staged to evoke her gun-slinging Mattie Ross in True Grit. Seeing as most publications will be moving on to Spring 2012 adverts with their next issues, we’re not exactly sure where the complaint will lead, but it’s safe to say that it’s got the industry riled up over a whole lot of nothing.

With all of the recent controversy over Steinfeld’s and Fanning’s ads and Vogue Paris’s editorial featuring 10-year-old model Thylane Loubry Blondeau this past July, we wonder whether hiring younger models will become out-moded. With Miu Miu’s  recent revealing 34-year-old Guinevere Van Seenus as the star of their new campaign, it’s a possibility.

THEY SAID…

@CocoRocha: “This UK ban of Miu Miu is a bit silly. Whats next?! A ban on jumping while wearing heels in editorials?” [Twitter]

Huffington Post: “Someone should tell the ASA that a fashionable little girl did not just wander unwittingly onto the tracks, not realizing that a train might come and kill her. She sat down, posed and then got up and left. And we are almost 100 percent sure that in doing so, she did not encourage other 14-year-olds to go play on train tracks.” [Huffington Post]

Prada Retail UK: “Steinfeld could have easily moved from where she was sitting because she was not restrained in any way.” [Telegraph UK]

Fashionista: “If we lived in the UK we would be slightly annoyed that government money and energy was being put into this.”[Fashionista]

WE SAID…

Rani Sheen, features editor: “I wonder if this kind of scrutiny and crackdown will encourage fashion and beauty brands to hire adults for their campaigns in future—Hailee Steinfeld and Dakota Fanning are both great to look at, but that might not be a bad thing.”

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