A French line of lingerie for children has stirred controversy.
The New York Daily News reports that Jours Apres Lunes has pictures of little girls dolled up in kiddie bras and underwear.
Quoting fashion website Fashionista, the newspaper reports that the little girls who model the Fille collection - aimed at four to 12-year-olds - wear makeup and sunglasses, aping poses of models four and five times their age.
Jours Apres Lunes, which translates into “Days after Moons” is the brainchild of Sophie Morin, a longtime lingerie designer, according to Fashionista, which says her goal was to borrow from adult lingerie trends to create underwear for toddlers to adolescents.
She labelled the underwear “loungerie” (lounge wear) rather than “lingerie”.
The Daily News quotes Marilisa Racco, fashion writer and author of Le Snob Lingerie, as saying that the clothing itself wasn't the problem - it was the target age and the way the girls were photographed.
“It's cute when a little girl dresses up in her mom's clothing and jewellery and high heels,” she told the Daily News. “These pictures are not cute. It's entirely inappropriate to put a four-year-old in a bouffant like she's Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman.
“It's inappropriate to sexualize children,” she said. “A pearl-encrusted triangle bra on a little girl does not sit well with me.”
London’s Daily Mail - not a prudish publication - decided not to carry many of the photos, deeming them “too risque to feature on MailOnline”.
MailOnline says that in one shot, a girl wears Jackie O-style sunglasses while lounging back on a pillow, her modesty protected by just panties and a cropped polka-dot tied top.
In another, three young girls play together, their hair set in Amy Winehouse-style beehives and their lips painted bright pinks and reds.
Fashionista says: 'What’s disturbing about Jours Après Lunes is... that it’s lingerie for people who probably shouldn’t be old enough to even know what lingerie is.'
The label also includes a range for babies and another for older teenagers and ladies, or 'femmes'. The styling sees a grown model made to look like a child, while the actual children are made to look like adults, according to Fashionista.
One of the promotional pictures for the 'femmes' range features a teenager in a bra and panties wearing little make-up and cuddling a giant teddy bear. - IOL
* IOL agrees with Mail Online and won’t be using the pictures - but you can see them using the links below.