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.

Niki de Saint Phalle’s “Les Trois Graces Fontaine” (“The Three Graces”), 1999.

by Marsha McCreadie

When the Oracle asked Niki de Saint Phalle which it would be, “perfection of the life or perfection of the art,” she said, “Screw Yeats. I’ll take both.”

For the most part, this is what artist-sculptor Saint Phalle did and what she got. An installation of nine of her sculptures, mainly representing her fanciful gigantisms phase and the final colorful chapter of her work, is on public display on Park Avenue in the 50s this summer and much of the upcoming fall. The occasion—really the celebration—is the 10th anniversary of Saint Phalle’s death.

For New Yorkers, whether sticky in the city or in and out of town, the outdoors season is right, the colors bright, the spirits high. The generously sized figures, thighs and bosoms to rival Botero’s, include some of her most well-known works (no, not “Hon,” or “She,” the huge prone pregnant body into whose cavernous vagina the public can walk—that one is permanently on display in Sweden and would take up half a subway stop) that include “Les Baigneurs” (“The Bathers”) from 1983, made of polyester resin, and the highly comic “Les Trois Graces Fontaine” from 1999, poly ceramic, stained, mirrored glass figures in pop art bathing suits, camping it up. Probably not what Greek classicists had in mind, but joyful as all get-out.

These represent her signature Nana (French slang for “broad” or “chick”) series, originally inspired by the pregnant Clarice Rivers, wife of Larry. Also on display is “Nana on a Dolphin,” as described, making nearby office buildings look very dull indeed.

To Saint Phalle’s credit, she was exploring female archetypes and imagery a few years before it became de rigeur. From a wealthy Franco-American family, she once was a model for French Vogue but became interested in art, even getting kicked out of the exclusive Brearley School for painting fig leaves red, she said, and subsequently becoming an artistic autodidact. Seemingly always part of the movement du jour, it didn’t hurt that she had a talent for getting with the right people, the emerging influences—in the very early 1960s, for instance, hanging with pals like Christo and Jean Tinguely (eventually one of her husbands) when they were practicing the Dada-influenced movement of conceptual art.

She first achieved notoriety for her “shooting paintings,” hidden paint containers shot by pistol to finish the work. You get the idea: random, violence, what is art? How we miss the ’60s!

But she truly hit her stride with the fanciful large sculptures that became her trademark, often used in public gardens such as her Tarot Garden in Tuscany, an enterprise 20 years in the making financed in part by her self-named perfume. Especially appealing to kids, the playful aspects of her surrealistic amusement park-like spaces were seemingly at odds with a temperament that once led to a nervous breakdown.

For New Yorkers right now, the installations are in tune with our temper and taste: Women, sports figures, people of color. If you’re on Park Avenue at 59th Street North, check out Louis Armstrong (polyurethane foam, resin and steel) and Miles Davis at 58th Street North (similar materials), both from Saint Phalle’s Black Heroes series, as well as an homage to Michael Jordan and “Baseball Player” (nod to Tony Wynn).

Nine sculptures by Saint Phalle are on view on Park Avenue from 52nd to 60th Street, July 12-Nov. 15.

For more information, contact the Nohra Haime Gallery, the gallery responsible for the full Saint Phalle retrospective last fall, at 730 5th Ave., 212-888-3550, gallery@nohrahaime.gallery.com.

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

Are we having the right conversation about Marissa Mayer? Mayer, Yahoo’s new CEO and the youngest in the Fortune 500, according to Fortune Magazine, is also the 19th female CEO and an expectant mother. We can choose to view this as a success for women (as long as we don’t act too surprised), however, in the year 2012, it seems like we’re still talking about Mayer’s gender—or issues surrounding her gender (pregnancy, her looks, etc.)—for all the wrong reasons.

(by Alissa Fleck)

According to the Boston Globe, “Working mothers and workplace observers pronounced themselves encouraged that Mayer’s pregnancy was not a factor [in the appointment], somewhat annoyed that in 2012 a pregnant chief executive even merits conversation.”

The conversation about whether you can “have it all” has been a hot topic as long as women have had top jobs. Victoria Budson, founding executive director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said we should be focusing more on how companies can better maximize talent, including incorporating women of “child-bearing years,” rather than talking about whether you can really “have it all,” according to the Globe. 

Though here at NY Press we do feel the need to question why the Globe follows this observation up by dissecting Mayer’s beauty. How often does that happen with male CEOs? Do we somehow take her achievements at Google to be all the more astonishing because she has a “Kathleen Turner voice” (according to Vogue)? Not that there’s anything wrong with being a beautiful CEO. I mean, let’s talk about Tim Armstrong over at AOL. Let’s talk about how he “demolishes old-fashioned oppositions of beauty and brains” (also Vogue), or maybe not, because, you know, he’s a man.

In 2010, when there were 12 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, 11 of them were mothers, reported the Wall Street Journal. Mothering does not just make you incommunicado after 5 p.m., it has its benefits in the CEO world—learning to raise children can facilitate the management of others. Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said “parenthood taught her the value of picking battles at home and work,” according to the WSJ. So if we decide to view motherhood as a moot point, or even an upside, what conversation should we be having about gender?

Unfortunately the WSJ also reported the reality: “Men with children are more likely to rise into management than women with children in most major industries.” Additionally, women who manage still make 79 cents to the dollar of men who manage, a figure which has stagnated since 2000, said the Journal.

This is why the conversation about gender must stay on the table, but for the right reasons. Hopefully when the next expectant, mother or woman CEO is designated, we won’t have to talk about whether it will be doable, we can just talk about progress.

Brad Goreski has been captivated by the world of fashion since picking up his first issue of Vogue at the age of 12. Decked in a signature blazer, bow tie and Oliver Peoples frames and muttering catchphrases and unforgettable one-liners, he was the breakout star of Bravo’s The Rachel Zoe Project,” working as her good-natured assistant. After a highly publicized split last year, Brad has struck out on his own, picking up celebrity clients like Jessica Alba, styling magazine photo shoots and starring in his own show, It’s a Brad, Brad World, on the same network.

Whether it comes to doling out style advice or walking the red carpet in sequined shoes, he is constantly proving that taking bold risks is always in fashion, on and off the runway.

At what address would you like to live?

147 Mercer St., in room 214.

When did you first feel like a New Yorker? What happened?

When I interned at Vogue. I was 24 and living in the West Village down the street from Sarah Jessica Parker. It was all very Carrie Bradshaw.

What is your favorite watering hole for lunch? For dinner?

Lunch at Fred’s, Dinner at ABC Kitchen.

What newspaper column do you read first in the morning?

WWD.

Who is the smartest New Yorker you know?

Anderson Cooper…even though I don’t know him. I think he’s smart.

Who is the funniest?

My boyfriend, Gary Janetti.

Who is your favorite dinner partner?

My girls: Danielle, Tracy, Annebet and Casey.

What’s your favorite New York sound?

Good music in a club. I love a dance party.

What’s your most embarrassing New York moment?

Being told I couldn’t come into the club Avenue because I was wearing shorts. They were Thom Browne!

What’s your worst-dressed New York moment?

Setting sail on the Queen Mary 2 wearing a full Tom Ford for Gucci western look, including GG logo belt and silk neck scarf.

What’s your favorite transportation moment in the city?

Anything involving an Escalade.

What is the hardest part about living in New York?

How expensive it is to live here on a daily basis.

Who do you most admire?

James Lescesne. He is one of the founders of the Trevor Project and I admire how much he does for other people. He’s a true living angel.

What brought you to New York?

Desire to work in fashion.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A back-up dancer for Lady Gaga. •