Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau

This young lady has moved from Russia to Los Angeles to expand her career with agencies LA Models and New York Models.

We first got acquainted with Thylane Blondeau when she was 10 years old and posing in the Jan. 2011 issue of Vogue Paris -- one that sparked a great deal of controversy. Blondeau, now 13, has landed her first "grown up" magazine cover.

2011 was definitely the year of the model. Models gained influence in pop culture, with new TV shows, documentaries, and larger features in magazines. It looks like editors will have to fight for their right to call themselves the "new models." And there were certainly enough big news stories to keep models in the headlines. From Kate Moss' wedding to Jamie Hince, to a crop of new girls who instantly zoomed to the top, to both Karlie Kloss' and Andrej Pejic' topless photos that caused minor scandals, there's been a lot to talk about in modeling. We've collected the models that created the most industry buzz in 2011, from Moss to Muse. Click through to find out which models created the most buzz in 2011!

PARIS--Our article, published earlier this week, about French children’s underwear line ‘Jour après Lunes’--a line comprised of lingerie–inspired pieces meant to be worn indoors and out, over and under clothes--led to far more reactions than we had imagined--including stories in major outlets like the New York Daily News, the UK's Daily Mail, and TODAY.com. The brand’s founder and designer Sophie Morin wrote a letter to Fashionista explaining why she doesn’t think her brand promotes anything dodgy or creepy. Her main points: The “ worn dessus-dessous” (i.e. underwear worn as outerwear) that has raised an upheaval, is in fact just another way of saying that, for example, an undershirt, worn under a sweater to be warm in the winter, can be worn with jeans in the summer; or bodysuits, often worn by babies, can become an outfit--like mothers often do with their babies when it is hot...Triangle bras--and there are only two models in the collection--are worn as swimwear for youngest clients; these can be worn as a first brassiere for girls and even young women who aren’t looking for real support, since these don’t have underwire. There are no real bras in my collection. The transgenerational mother/daughter aspect of my brand doesn’t offer anything new and is identical to what lots of ready to wear brands offer. And about the photos of my brand, I’d like to specify that the articles in which they appeared were taken out of their context and were laid out to imply a sexy dimension that didn’t originally exist. All the photos show children playing children’s games, as we’ve all done.

PARIS--No need to remind you of the ongoing scandal around Thylane Loubry-Blondeau, daughter of French TV celebrity(ish), and her borderline erotic shoot for Vogue Paris. So does it merit the outrage? Or is it merely the continuation of a long French tradition? Although I live in Paris and Blondeau is of French descent, I heard of the outrage through the US media. The French press had either brushed it off, or reported on "the Americans going hysterical." If you contrast the coverage of the same story in the US and in France, it's almost as if outlets are talking about different photos. Here are excerpts of the same story, one in the New York Daily News, the other in the French equivalent, the Nouvel Observateur: