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Images of 10-year-old model Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau caused a sensation this week, with commentary from fashion blogs, women’s blogs, and various news outlets (including a segment on GMA this morning). When we originally wrote about Blondeau, we were put off to see her “consistently being photographed like an adult,” or a (comparatively) older model: namely, that blank but direct gaze so popular in fashion magazines, the lips parted, and a particular image in which she’s subtly tugging down the waistline of her jeans.
As it turns out, every single one of the photos (with the exception of those from French Vogue) come from a single source:
photographer Dani Brubaker, who has shot children in campaigns for Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, and many more. Her mission statement–as it appears on her blog and Facebook is–”I grew up by the code of the Native American Indian. The code, which venerates children yet allows them freedom of self-expression.”
We were contacted by Brubaker’s team about not properly crediting the images. We asked which belonged to Brubaker and said we were happy to credit her. They responded, “Every photo that you are using except for the Vogue image belongs to Dani Brubaker. Since the article is in a negative tone we wish to not participate. Please remove each image from your site as there copyrighted and belong to Dani Brubaker.” She declined further comment.
A lot of the responses to the images are extreme–”horrifying,” “shocking,” more than a few compare the shots of Blondeau to child pornography. I don’t agree with that. I think that many of the images are age-appropriate but some are very, very questionable in terms of how they depict a child. A few go so far as to become unsettling (like this “implied nude” as Jezebel’s Jenna Sauers referred to it).
It’s unfortunate that Brubaker is uncomfortable with the criticism and thus (seemingly) wants to stymie discussion. You can see more of the photos in question at Jezebel, Fashionista, Styleite, Radar, the Daily Beast or read some more opinions at Feministe, our sister site Mommyish, or here and here and here and here…)
[Photos: Dani Brubaker]
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 | ‘Sexy’ Images Of 10-Year-Old Girl/Fashion Model Thylane Blondeau Go Too Far |
Are you kidding me…..Dani is brilliant at what she does. You just have to intelligent enough to appreciate her work. She is salt of the earth….and is good through and through….Dani would never want to hurt anyone in anyway. Shame on you for judging her. Remember that’s not your job !!
Just because a child has an beautiful face doesn’t mean you should exploit them and photograph them every second of their life. Let them live their life, make their decisions and decide for themselves when they’re old enough. This is soo disgustinggg
people are bloomin rediculous, calling the photographer and Thylane’s own mother pedophiles. What is wrong with a topless 10 year old dressed up in idian garb? Why is that sexual? she has no boobs, she has the chest of a boy and there is nothing sexual about it. Pedophiles will fawn over pictures of dressed and naked children alike. I celebrate kids being allowed to be free and love dani’s photos for that very reason. Thylane is beautiful and she has a grown up look but that is not her fault.
The vogue pictures border on innapropriate for me, but this article is discussing Dani’s photos. There is not one thing wrong with Dani’s photos. People are just over-reacting and being over sensitive and rediculous.
Dani Brubaker has NOTHING to do with the exploitation of Thylane or any other child she photographs; Thylane was BORN with this face and has photographed this was since a baby….it is innately her LOOK….Dani loves the innocence of children, will bend over backwards to protect children and I find it abhorrent that the above people are projecting such negativity onto such an amazingly talented photographer. Media takes things and runs with it, this included.
That child may have been “born with that face,” but that does not mean her face and her body needed to be turned into sexualized adult objects for the consumption of the masses. That you cannot see the abject abuse inherent in turning a prepubescent girl into a sex object speaks little for your judgement. Atrocity can be cloaked in the word “art” just as much as it can in the word “democracy.” This is an example of the worst impulses of humanity, where children are turned into objects of sexual fantasy by “well-meaning” adults.
There’s nothing sexual about any of these images. People forget that almost everything you see in an image is what you project onto it. That’s the beauty of art. So if you see something sexual when you look at a picture of a little girl, the problem is in you.
I hesitate to believe you are so ignorant and near-sighted that you cannot see the sexual exploitation in these photographs. They are not “art” – they are a product of the Madison Avenue “sell it anyway you can” mentality that turns little girls into sexual objects for the consumption of the masses. They are a horrendous example of propriety gone wrong. The problem is with a society that finds such things acceptable.
@Jason.
So you’re saying that nothing is intentional in art. Which is fucking stupid.
That’s funny,I expose a lot of pedos on youtube(trust me you likely dont want to know how deep this goes) and they mostly write the same thing as you just about.Nice one,switch it around to the people who arent twisted.Pretty clever jason.
“Atrocity can be cloaked in the word “art” just as much as it can in the word “democracy.””
Sooooooooo … democracy is wrong, because atrocity can be cloaked in it?
Interesting, that you wanna smear democracy as something “evil”, you must be ReichWinger ….
Anyway … this is a girl, using her LEGAL marketable skills to make money, why are capitalist Americans against this?
That’s hypocrisy number one
hypocrisy number TWO is of course the condoning of Pageants for six year olds, which ACTUALLY got Jon-Benet killed!
So, yeah, FIRST go clean up your filthy pedo-pageants, then come back to complain about whatever.
Hypocrisy number 3 is that 10 year olds are adorning the pages of the Sears Roebuck catalogs and have been doing so for over 60 years …
So, if they’re anonymous, it’s a-ok, but when they’re French and called Blondeau it’s apparently Verboten …. ????
Really, F…. off already
DISGUSTING! PEOPLE STYLING THIS PHOTOSHOOTS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS LIKE BRUBAKER ARE PHEDOPHILES!! THEY SHOULD BE KEPT AWAY FROM CHILDREN AT ALL TIMES.
These are provocative in really inappropriate ways. Photographer, Sally Mann, got a lot of flack for her nude photos of her own adolescent and prepubescent children. Lots of sexuality in those. Also very provocative but the children would appear to be full partners in their creation, and don’t seem like pawns in someone else’s pornographic machinations. I often wonder how people who get upset over “fashion” images like these would feel about Ms. Mann’s photos which received similar criticism when they came out.
Sally Mann’s photography is most definitely ART … except of course in Red State America, the center of the know art world, and who are leeching upon the Blue States, yet wanna lecture those about everything. Here’ s a suggestion: STFU until you can pay your own way.
“I grew up by the code of the Native American Indian. The code, which venerates children yet allows them freedom of self-expression.”
Stop hiding your idiocy behind the wisdom of the Native Tribes of North America. That’s privilege talking, the same privilege which makes you think what you’re doing is somehow acceptable. How many little girls have to die or be abused at the hands of others who “venerate” them before people like Ms. Brubaker get it through their heads that THIS IS NOT RIGHT!
This is silly.
Dani did grow up that way, and she has a wonderful rappore with kids. There is nothing sexual about the pictures or the way she works with children. I ask you do check her website out. There is nothing sexual about a childs body and just because you can see their legs, chest, tummy.. that doesnt make a picture sexy. You can’t live in fear of some perve sitting behind his computer screen. You can’t hold a child back because of that. They must be allowed to live and love freely. Protect them from real threats, not that.
I think that before you make harsh comments about beautiful pictures should take a closer view of the CHILD BEAUTY PAGEANTS in USA . THAT is ABUSE and what are you doing about it?? Take care of what is happening in your own country and leave Brubaker and the Blondeau alone.
Those pedo pagents are sick true but you are wrong,they take place all over the world.This seems to strike a nerve with you.Why should “we leave Brubaker and Blondeau alone”?This is a free country so who are you to tell us what we can write here.It is very stupid to suggest “Take care of what is happening in your own country” as if we can control what is on TV,haha.LIke we all want thsi crap on.Get real.These people are promoting pedophilia and sorry you are so upset to use caps lock to defend them.It must be a personal issue for you to defend creepy images?amusing…
pedo pagents ARE PREDOMINANTLY in the US of A-holes, so … YOU LIE. Just cos Americans are so obsessed with plastering make-up all over 6 year olds, doesn’t mean the rest of us are. YOU ARE DIFFREENT, EFFed up and weird.
Dani Brubaker should probably be more uncomfortable about the damage she’s doing to this poor kid than she is about the criticism she’s receiving. I’m not particularly sympathetic to her this-is-art-and-that-makes-it-okay-OF-COURSE attitude, so I kind of think she should go into the little girl’s dressing room and retrieve the big-girl panties from the last photo shoot, then put them on herself and deal with it. But then again, she probably works with kids because they don’t get all sassy like that. ;)
damage? Seriously?
Thylane and her brother are two of the most natural and happy children ever. They play, they love, they laugh and live and they don’t have any concept of any of this and I think they’d laugh at the idea of them being ‘Abused’… most of all by Dani or their mother. They are wonderful French children and they are very intelligent and polite. There is nothing to worry about with them. Try worrying about the kids who really are being hurt in this world. Try going to badbreeders.net and seeing some REAL stories of abused kids.
Just seen the ‘implied nude’ WRONG WRONG WRONG how this is not seen as WRONG by everyone is beyond me. I come from Europe too…. this is not how we bring up our children. That mum is a f***ing idiot and so is the photographer and all involved.
I agree all involved!! Mother Photographer stylists ALL OF THEM Phedophiles!!!!!
Oh no, you can see her skin! She must be scarred for life! The poor abused child! Take her into care now!
Please. Worry about the poor kids being raped and molested by their parents, not a child playing dress up.
Why use a child to sell things to adults? The whole concept doesn’t make sense!
Real adult women are not that size, and if designers and manufacturers claim to be aiming at an adult market, please get your models to suit!
Dani Brubaker is the best childrens photographer I have ever seen. She has a way of capturing the moment is children. It’s real and I find it refreshing. I’ve been following her work for years and she has always photographed Thylane Blondeau.
She is indeed phenominal and it’s such a shame people are so blinded by their silly fears of pedophiles and things they can’t see it.
Give me a break. This child is drop dead gorgeous and none of these photographs are creepy in anyway. It’s French Vogue people! Not Toddlers and Tiaras.
I think this strikes at the difference between the perceptions of male and female sexuality. I can’t imagine women finding looking at images of say a 10yr old boy disturbing in the same way.
Hi Dani,
I hope you sleep well at night and that your bank balance reflects that you sold your soul to the highest bidder. That child belongs in Gap Kids ads. Why are you trying to sell kiddies stilletos and kiddies lipstick? No, you sell adult products on a 10 year old…Gheeeee Thanks!
”I grew up by the code of the Native American Indian. The code, which venerates children yet allows them freedom of self-expression.”? Using the “code” of a group of people (which is ridiculous in and of itself, considering so many differences between tribal ideologies) as an explanation for sexualized photos of children is not only outrageous, it’s plain offensive.
“…yet allows them freedom of expression.” Is that to say the child wasn’t directed by the photographer? I’ve seen film clips from photoshoots with comments about more of this/less of that…. I find it hard to believe these photos are a representation of the childs free expression, that substitution of the adult photographers direction onto the canvas of the child as a prop is the manipulation of the child that I find unsettling. Contrasting an adult situation or pose, with a child’s appearance is the manipulation that should be discouraged. Creepy.
Hold back those comments before actually watching DANI work. She doesn’t direct, she lets things play out. Thylane is a natural, she just is that way and always has been and she poses herself. Many of her other pictures of various other kids just show them being silly and messing around. Dani doesn’t ‘pose’ children and never has.
What kind of response did she expect from photos like that? With any profession that is under the possible scrutiny of the public eye, you have to be able to accept any and all publicity, good or bad.
Oh, come on! She’s a little kid, how can you expect her to accept negative critisism at the tender age of…. Oh, you mean the photographer! Yes, she’s a professional and an adult, and as such should be able to handle any fallout as a result of her choices as an adult professional who’s an adult.
Of course there shouldn’t have been any critisism, because the whole world is France, and France has spoken and everyone here (read: the world) agrees that this is fine and shut up Americasses, this drop-dead gorgeous child laughs at you!