Photo Courtesy of Jennifer Marie Puglia (via Flickr)

What’s acceptable fashion for a 3-year-old? What about a 6-year-old? Where do you draw the line? The topic is recurrently explored on TLC’s reality television series, Toddlers & Tiaras, which has been extremely controversial since its 2009 debut. It’s also causing fallout well beyond the realm of television, reaffirming the notion—for some—that any publicity is good publicity.

According to TLC, Toddlers & Tiaras “showcases the competitive world of child pageants, as three families have their children judged on beauty, personality and costumes.” The show revolves around the high tension lives of child beauty queens, and their families, as they navigate the pageant circuit and its multitudinous complexities, many of them still young enough to someday forget this phase of their lives.

Episodes, frequently named after pageants, boast such titles as “Beautiful Dolls,” “Viva Las Vegas” and “Tiny Miss USA.” These names speak for themselves, as the young girls are intended to simultaneously replicate, not only hyper-sexualized adult women, but also flawless playthings.

One former contestant on the show, 6-year-old Maddy Verst, now finds herself at the center of a controversy sparked by the series. In one, now infamous, televised pageant appearance, her mother, Lindsay Jackson, dressed the young girl as Dolly Parton, “complete with figure-enhancing padded bra and sculpting underwear,” reports the Huffington Post. Viewers and child experts everywhere were outraged, but perhaps no one more so than the girl’s father (allegedly).

Maddy’s father, Bill Verst, is now claiming the girl’s mother sexually exploited her by dressing her in the outfit and is trying to gain full custody of the child. For the foreseeable future, Jackson is prohibited from signing Maddy up for more pageants, while the case remains pending.

Jackson extrapolated from her daughter’s situation in a statement, saying this case could start a precedent in which girls were not able to reach their full potential, for instance, being prohibited from becoming “gold medal winners.”

“We wouldn’t have Miss America, we wouldn’t have Miss USA,” Jackson told Fox News.

One week after Maddy appeared as a racy Dolly Parton, another 3-year-old contestant appeared as prostitute Julia Roberts circa Pretty Woman. 

Even beyond ascertaining what fashion is acceptable for young children, what should the repercussions be of violating these standards? When a parent has entire control over a child’s wardrobe, and “violates” that control, is this an ethical conundrum—a source of potential child endangerment—as Verst’s custody battle suggests, or simply a matter of questionable taste? Many defenders argue no harm could possibly come to the girl, but how can anyone determine what the longterm fallout might be for an easily scandalized child model?

The Toddlers & Tiaras debacle is reminiscent of the controversy that emerged last year when the French high fashion magazine Vogue featured a 10-year-old model in skimpy, cutaway clothing, sparking debate about fashion advertisement and the sexualization of young girls. Her poses were called “oddly adult” by many, reported ABC News, further complicating the shoot’s intent. As in the case of Maddy Verst, the controversy took a serious toll on the girl’s family.

ABC  reported Veronika Loubry, fashion designer and mother to the 10-year-old high fashion model, swooped in to defend her daughter. Many would argue, when a child is young and naive, a parent’s job is to defend and not exploit. But are the two mutually exclusive? If anything, the Toddlers & Tiaras fallout reveals the line is certainly a blurred one.

The urban cloak of invisibility

by Jeanne Martinet

He came out of nowhere.

There I was getting my hair cut, absorbed in the blissful experience of being pampered and beautified, when suddenly I noticed a tall, chiseled man in the mirror right over my head. Hello? But he wasn’t looking at me, he was scrutinizing himself, and he was talking to my stylist.

“So, Brigitta…” The stranger smoothed his almost nonexistent hair (which looked like a crew cut that could hardly be cut further) back above his right ear. With his head cocked, he continued to study himself in the mirror. “Do you think I’ll be ready to come back next week?” he said. “I do want the top to be—I want to have enough for you to work with.” Who the hell is this guy? Do salons need bouncers now?

“Ah, sure,” Brigitta replied in her elegant Latvian accent, “You will probably be ready, I think.” She paused in mid-air over my head while she gave him an obligatory scan. One of her hands held the scissors and the other the comb.
I gaped at the man. “Hey! I’m sitting right here!” I wanted to yell. He was still gazing at himself in my mirror, his face about two feet above mine, and he was turning his head this way and that, touching his hair. Brigitta started snipping away at me again, trying to ignore him. He was obviously a regular customer, so she could not very easily tell him to leave.

“But you see this here…” he said, and he brushed his hand over the top of his bristly head and smiled devilishly at himself. I looked pointedly up at him, my eyebrows raised as far as they would go, in what I hoped was questioning disdain. At last his eyes met mine, and I detected a faint hint of embarrassment. “I’ll come back,” he said quickly.

After he left, Brigitte apologized and said the front desk should have waylaid the man. But I couldn’t help wondering: What was it that made me invisible? Until I finally got his attention, I was just an object, like the chair. I do not believe he was acting primarily out of a sense of entitlement, like someone who butts in front of you because they believe their business is more urgent than yours. It was simply that he was oblivious.

Obliviousness is not uncommon in urban life. We’ve all had the experience of waiting for a cab when someone steps right in front of us and grabs it. But the truth is, most of these taxi thieves are not thinking, “If I move quickly, I can get that cab first.” They really do not notice the other people waiting.

As New Yorkers we constantly need to cut out noise and stimuli or go crazy, so we develop tunnel vision, and everything nonessential tends to recede into the background—including, sometimes, other people.

Sometimes we can’t see others even when we really want to. Recently I heard about a friend and his wife who were both trying to meet up on 42nd Street. They were walking in opposite directions toward each other, on the same side of the street, yet they walked right past each other without realizing it. The crowded city itself affects awareness.

But certainly there are situations in which we are more prone to becoming invisible. When we hand our bodies over to be worked on—primped, trimmed, massaged, whatever—there is a sort of disappearing that happens, since we become almost entirely passive. We become a thing upon which something is being done.

Isn’t this why manicurists talk to each other while they are doing your nails? And (ever more increasingly, it seems) why checkout clerks talk to each other while they are checking you out? You, the customer, are not real. You are a shadow, a blur going by.

Of course, I could (as is my wont) blame the salon incident on the insensitivity of our technology-saturated society—on the theory that everyone is so insular that others seem just a part of each person’s own reflection in the mirror. But I suspect it might be simpler: The guy was a classic narcissist.

Certainly, while my Narcissus was obsessing over his hair, his reflection and mine merged in at least one way. Whether it was because Brigitta was distracted by his interruption or she was influenced by looking at his cropped head, she ended up clipping away much longer on me than necessary.

So now, thanks to this short-haired interloper, I have much shorter hair than I wanted. And, funnily enough, invisibility no longer seems such a bad idea.

Jeanne Martinet, aka Miss Mingle, is the author of seven books on social interaction. Her latest book is a novel, Etiquette for the End of the World. You can contact her at JeanneMartinet.com.

If you need to recoup the funds you wasted on drinks and strippers this holiday season, it’s time to start selling some of the Christmas duds you’ll never use. This may sound mean spirited, but it’s not. It’s simply making the most of a failed gift. Sell it. Get some cash. New Year’s Eve is just a few days away. Ask yourself how you want to spend it. What you want to spend on it. Whether you have the funding to spend anything on it. How’s that feel? Still full of Christmas cheer? Find below some suggestions on where to sell your naughty and get a little bit of nice.

The High End Mofos

You know who you are. You know what you’ve got. You know what it’s worth. Why sell it? Isn’t one Marc Jacobs bag enough? Aren’t the pair of Y3s you have from last year still pretty clean? Make your way to TOKIO 7 (83 E. 7th St.) where the good folks will eye and tag your goods. Remember: these items are consigned. The $1,800 leather jacket you got is going to sell for $500, of which you’ll get $250. Don’t take it personally. Take it in stride. If you’re looking for a little exchange action take a look around the store, they’ve got a bit of everything for the couture minded.

Upside: The price point at this consignment store is higher than many of the others. They’re viewed as the best in the business so daily traffic is heavy and turnaround time is quick.

Downside: You do have to wait for the items to sell before you get paid. The people buying your clothes may unintentionally insult you in the process. “This is awful.”

It’s My Money and I Want It NOW!

Shots are an important part of anyone’s New Year. It’s a fact. You’re looking to get drunk as fast as possible, so your inhibitions morph into a black cloud big enough to encompass all the night’s mistakes. What’s the fastest way to fall into that cloud? Shots. When you’re selling mid-level garments you need to view every item as a shot. So take that flannel buttondown grandma got you to Buffalo Exchange (332 E. 11th St.). The staff is very welcoming and they’ll give you cash right off the bat. Got five pairs of Abercrombie jeans? Guess what, now you’ve got 5 shots.

Upside: You get cash on the spot. No wait. No hassle. The staff is very nice, so you won’t feel so bad when they tell you how little your clothes are actually worth.

Downside: They’ll give you 30 percent of whatever they end up pricing your clothes at.

Coming Out of the Closet

2011 had plenty of ups and downs, but one of the ups was that Brooklyn mega-thrift store Beacon’s Closet crossed the bridge and set roots in Greenwich Village. Similar to Buffalo Exchange, Beacon’s Closet (10 W. 13th St.) will take your shit, tag it and send you to the bank with a little bit of green. Posted up next to New School’s fashion school, Parsons, the store attracts a younger crowd with mixed threads.

Upside: The store is huge. They have the space to buy pretty much anything as long as it’s in good shape. You might be lucky enough to pick up a first date at the store, given its locale.

Downside: 35 percent in cash. It’s a bit better than Buffalo, but the price point is a little lower, so it evens out. Staff wears heavy makeup…Make of that what you will.

A Book? Read My Lips…

Everyone loves giving books for the holidays. It’s “sensible.” Unfortunately, most people have no clue what kind of books you like. They give you the classics. The life changers. The angst filled. All of which you have no interest in. No. Go out there and make a story of your own. If you’re looking to get rid of some heavy reading this holiday season, head over to everyone’s favorite second-hand bookstore The Strand(828 Broadway). No, they will not pay top dollar for your copy of Gatsby, but this ain’t the prohibition era. Booze is cheap. Take what you can get and head to The Commodore.

Upside: They love books.

Downside: Check to make sure it’s within their buying hours.