It’s Tuesday, Oct. 1 — the last day of Paris Fashion Week. Critics find their seats as they prepare to view Miu Miu’s Spring 2025 collection. Flyers hanging on a line begin circling the spacious room and flashing on the walls. The music starts, and the chatter thins. Who walks out first? 16-year-old Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, in her runway debut.
Adorned in a billowing white dress, leg warmers, and pumps, the rookie, daughter of Nicole Kidman and Kieth Urban, walked into the kind of spotlight most models spend their entire careers chasing after. And she isn’t the only one doing it.
Romeo Beckham, son of Victoria and David Beckham took advantage of his celebrity status and walked the Balenciaga Spring/Summer 2025 show in his runway debut.
Many of this generation’s most successful models are the offspring of the rich and famous; Lila Moss, Lily-Rose Depp, Kaia Gerber, Gigi Hadid, and Kendall Jenner are just a few. But being wealthy and recognizable weren’t always prerequisites to a successful modeling career.
The public has always loved models from humble beginnings. Take Irina Shayk, Gisele Bündchen, and Natalia Vodianova for example. Their success stories helped form the idea the fashion industry was accessible to anyone as long as they were willing to work hard enough.
Top models like Anok Yai and Vittoria Ceretti have given their opinions on runway nepotism. In 2022, both took to their Instagram stories to respond to this quote Lily-Rose Depp, daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, gave in an interview for Elle:
“The internet cares a lot more about who your family is than the people who are casting you in things. Maybe you get your foot in the door, but you still just have your foot in the door. There’s a lot of work that comes after that.”
Ceretti wrote, “I get the whole ‘I’m here and I work hard for it,’ but I would really love to see if you would have lasted thru the first 5 years of my career,” She continues by writing about her experiences waiting hours at a casting just to see a nepo baby “walk right by.”
Yai shared similar concerns, writing, “I will see some of you privileged kids stress about not booking a job because of the impact on your career while there are those of us who stress about not booking a job because we don’t know if we’ll be able to take care of our parents this month or put our siblings through school.”
These rags-to-riches tales garnered tons of publicity. So why the switch up? Former casting director James Scully says, “Clicks are the new advertising,” and “Nepo babies direct huge amounts of online traffic and engagement regardless of how tall they are or how well they can walk.”
Not only is this unfair to hardworking models, but it isn’t sustainable. Nepo babies might garner attention, but not for all the right reasons. In fact, the public isn’t too happy about Sunday Rose Kidman Urban’s debut. On Miu Miu’s Instagram post featuring the young nepo, users have commented things like “For the love of God pls stop pushing nepo bbys on us” and, “Sunday needs to retire ASAP.”
Models from working-class backgrounds keep the layman at arm’s length of high fashion. Too much nepotism disrupts this connection though, and designers should be wary of overlooking the part the public plays in selling their brand.
After all, as Miranda Priestly put it in The Devil Wears Prada, the cerulean blue sweater that Andy donned represents “millions of dollars and countless jobs.” That’s got to count for something.
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