Ads And Adolescence Experts Send Up Warning Flags About The Messages Sent By Increasingly Young And Suggestive Models

With her take-no-prisoner prancing on the catwalk, wide eyes and ‘70s-style crop top, model Bijou Phillips is the toast of the fashion world.

And they ain’t kidding when they call her baby-faced. Phillips, you see, is a seasoned veteran who began modeling at 13. She’s now a ripe old 16.

Many see Phillips as only the latest in a long line of modeling teens fueling the fetish for innocence and frailty. Both provocative and vulnerable, ads featuring scantily-clad pubescents with their mischievous mugs and thin-as-a-rail bodies have been plastered across billboards, print ads and bus shelters for years.

And observers fear that the trend is becoming more rampant, as early adolescence continues to be seen as a viable market audience.

“I think that this is an extreme indication of America’s preoccupation with youth,” says Suzanne Ferriss, co-editor of “On Fashion,” a critical look at the fashion industry. “That’s what we glamorize, that’s what we valorize in this country.”

The average age of models has consistently dropped every generation as advertisers reach deeper into the next group of rising consumers. Today’s preteens, after all, are tomorrow’s consumer niche.

“If you can capture the early teen market, you can have a significant dollar income,” says Dr. Richard MacKenzie, a Los Angeles physician who has been treating teen disorders for 26 years.

The fashion industry in particular has long been known for its suggestive ads, such as the 1980 spot featuring teenager Brooke Shields - cast at 12 as a prostitute in Louis Malle’s “Pretty Baby” - this time cooing “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins.”

Nothing came between Drew Barrymore and chaos after “E.T.” - she took up smoking at 9, was an alcoholic at 10, attempted suicide, then underwent years of therapy to become sober.

But younger and younger models continue to burst onto the scene oblivious to some of the downsides of stardom.

Supermodel Naomi Campbell debuted in British Elle in 1985 at age 15. In her new book “Naomi” (Universe Publishing, $25 paperback), Campbell was asked: “How do you see teenagers today? What do you think of child models?”

Her reply:

“I think child models are a little scary. It depends on if their family is supportive and involved. But I think you shouldn’t start too young, that school should come first.”

The lure of big paychecks and high glamour, however, ensures that teens flood the ranks of the fashionably cool.

A recent Klein campaign had Uber-waif Kate Moss - herself just out of her teens - leaning suggestively against the baby-faced Bijou, as if neither were able to stand without support.

“Bijou’s 16-going-on-40, but she’s just a ball of fire,” father and Mamas and the Papas rocker John Phillips told People magazine.

Attempts to reach Bijou for comment were not successful. Several messages left with her modeling and theater agency went unanswered.

Bijou’s half sister, Mackenzie, struggled with her own demons after being dropped from “One Day at a Time” in 1980 because of her cocaine addiction. She kicked the habit and returned in 1981.

Bijou is already planning an album, has just nabbed a role in the new “Star Wars” sci-fi flick and is also in the film “Stealing Paradise.”

“The kid should be studying algebra, for crying out loud,” grouses one disgusted columnist.

But after her father offered her the choice of either attending school or becoming the youngest fashion model in recent history, Bijou made her runway debut for Jill Stuart at the tender age of 13.

Phillips is most famous for her disturbing profile in last year’s now-notorious Calvin Klein ad campaign featuring gaunt, wide-eyed teenagers in provocative poses.

Physicians and psychologists who deal with troubled adolescents criticize the practice of hawking million-dollar fabrics with models not yet old enough to legally drive.

“I think it’s exploitative,” says Dr. Frances Stott, dean of the Erikson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Development in Chicago. “Developmentally these girls are still very young. I mean, they’re still sleeping with stuffed animals.”

But Bijou’s mother enthusiastically supported the Klein campaign.

“I resent (suggestions) that I would allow my daughter to be used as an object of pedophilia,” the actress Genevieve Waite wrote in a New York Times letter to the editor. “My daughter has passed puberty and is in the first bud of womanhood.”

But not yet old enough, say those who treat famous teens in trouble.

“I think that they are being forced to grow up,” says Bronwyn Mayden, of the Child Welfare League of America. “They are being given choices and being thrust into circumstances that they are not ready to make.”