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Another fashion month has come to an end, and not without some surprises in its final days – Hedi Slimane’s departure from Celine, and a fresh new model on the block.
The latest known name is Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, the 16-year-old daughter of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, who walked the Miu Miu show at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.
Yes, it feels like five minutes ago we were discussing the couple’s choice of “Sunday” as a baby name, but here she is, as tall as her mother, with the same ability to make anything look really good she wears.
The teenager’s modeling debut was a star turn in a star-studded show, sharing the catwalk with Alexa Chung, Willem Dafoe, Hillary Swank and Cara Delevingne. She also attended a celebrity-filled post-show dinner, and sat front row at Balenciaga with her mother. She may be a “nepo child” (Gen-Z speak for someone whose career has benefited from her parents’ famous connections), but even the harshest critic has to admit that she has something informs her.
And this is what makes Sunday Rose, famous surname or not, a hot property as a model: people are interested in her, which means that brands will be ready to pay for the opportunity to share that spotlight.
Sunday Rose seems happy with it, too. She attended her first fashion show as a guest in June (Balenciaga couture in Paris, no big deal). In a conversation with Victoria Beckham published this summer in Vogue AustraliaKidman revealed why she finally agreed to let Sunday be with her. “She’s about to turn 16. That’s what I told her, when she was 16 she was allowed to come to a show. She wants to go for a long time. That was her attempt at it… It’s a push and pull. I don’t want to hold her back because I don’t want to sleep with her.”
Kidman and Urban won’t be alone in trying to strike a balance between keeping their children in the spotlight and letting them follow their dreams, but there is a well-established path for “launching” celebrity offspring into public life, and fashion is usually the way. vehicle.
It starts with the kind of debut most models could only dream of – a Miu Miu catwalk show being one of them. Miuccia Prada has form when it comes to casting the next big thing – Daria Werbowy, Karolína Kurková, Lindsey Wixson and Arizona Muse debuted as Prada “exclusives”, meaning they were contractually obligated not to walk any other shows the that season. It is considered a great privilege for a young model, and a sign that they are on the road to another level of success.
Getting Sunday Rose is also a plus for Miu Miu, says Sara McCorquodale, CEO and founder of influencer and digital trends information platform, CORQ.: “She has had little media exposure and this creates additional buzz around the show. It’s an unexpected story that suddenly makes a niche event relevant to a mass audience.”
Part of the appeal is that we don’t know much about Sunday Rose. The other advantage is that her parents’ wealth and connections afford her the luxury of being able to develop her modeling career slowly and carefully, with the best management team and agents around her. For Sunday Rose, there will be no e-commerce modeling shoots to pay the bills.
“To present her in this luxurious context speaks volumes about the intent of her personal brand,” says McCorquodale. “I think we can expect a very conservative career and trajectory. We’re not going to get ‘warts and all’ social content from her – she’s being positioned as a distinct type of talent for the premium market.”
We have seen this strategy as well in the careers of other nepo baby models. Take Kaia Gerber, the 23-year-old daughter of Cindy Crawford and one of the most successful models working today. She signed with mega-agency IMG at the age of 15, and made her catwalk debut at 16 for Calvin Klein during Raf Simons’ tenure as artistic director.
Lily Rose Depp is another example: her mother, Vanessa Paradis, was a longtime muse of Karl Lagerfeld, and the late designer appointed Lily Rose as a Chanel brand ambassador after she turned 16.
This is only the tip of the iceberg: the Hadid sisters, Gigi and Bella (daughters of Real Housewife Yolanda Hadid and property investor Mohamed Hadid), Kendall Jenner (daughter of Kris and Caitlyn, half-sister of the Kardashians), are also there. Lila Moss (daughter of Kate), Hailey Bieber (nee Baldwin), Iris Law (daughter of Jude), Deva Cassel (daughter of Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel) and Lennon Gallagher (son of Liam and Patsy Kensit). If you want to be a successful model, famous parents really help.
These famous children are instant influencers, first appearing in paparazzi photos with their parents or on their social media feeds, and then earning their own followers simply because people are curious about their celebrity lives next to them. Brands want this opportunity, former casting director James Scully told the New York Times: “Clicks are the new advertising. Nepo children drive a huge amount of traffic and engagement online no matter how tall they are or how well they can walk.”
There’s more depth than that though, says McCorquodale. “As a society, we are interested in nepo children because they represent the next chapter of a culturally relevant story. They evoke feelings of nostalgia and youth and have unique lives as descendants of statues. They also provide common ground between generations – Gen-X mothers who aspired to Kate Moss’s style will no doubt find their Gen-Z children taking after her daughter Lila. Suddenly they are united by understanding two halves of one story. In an era of influence – where anyone can theoretically achieve fame – nepo children also bring depth and unspoken heritage to the table.”
So the reunion of cousins Molly Moorish-Gallagher, Lennon Gallagher, Anaïs Gallagher and Gene Gallagher on the front row of the Burberry show last month – shortly after the Oasis reunion was announced – was a stroke of genius. “The brand seemed to be proudly referencing its cultural connection to the Britpop era,” says McCorquodale. “For many, this has been a great day and there is a positive, optimistic quality to the suggestion that we are entering a new era of this.”
On her own, Sunday Rose appears to be a down-to-earth young woman. In Instagram reel for Vogueshe comes across as charming, with many onlookers commenting on her “amazing” accent – a mix of South America (the family is based in Nashville, Tennessee) and Australia, where both her parents were raised.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, so when the offer came through it was really exciting,” she says in the clip. “And now the day is finally here. I was very stressed, but everyone here is very nice.”
If she can maintain that enthusiasm and professionalism, she could go far.
