Brooke Shields began her career as a model in 1966, at the age of 11 months. Her first job was for Ivory Soap, shot by Francesco Scavullo.She continued as a successful child model with model agent Eileen Ford, who, in her Lifetime Network biography, stated that she started her children’s division just for Shields.
In early 1980, the 14-year-old Shields was the youngest fashion model ever to appear on the cover of the top fashion publication Vogue magazine. Later that same year, Shields appeared in controversial print and TV ads for Calvin Klein jeans. The TV ad included her saying the famous tagline, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” Brooke Shields ads would help catapult Klein’s career to super-designer status.
From 1981 to 1983, Brooke Shields, her mother, photographer Gary Gross, Playboy Press and the New York City Courts were involved in litigation over the rights to some photographs her mother had signed away to the photographer (when dealing with models who are also minors, a parent or legal guardian must sign such a release form while other agreements are subject to negotiation) which were originally intended to appear in a book titled Sugar and Spice to be published by Playboy Press.
The courts ruled in favor of the photographer but due to a strange twist in New York law, it would have been otherwise had Brooke Shields been considered a child “performer” rather than a model
By the age of 16, Shields had become one of the most recognizable faces in the world, because of her dual career as a provocative fashion model and controversial child actress. TIME magazine reported, in its February 9, 1981, cover story, that her day rate as a model was $10,000. In 1983, Shields appeared on the cover of the September issue of Paris Vogue, the October and November issues of American Vogue and the December edition of Italian Vogue. During that period Shields became a regular at New York City’s nightclub Studio 54. In 2009, a naked picture of Brooke Shields, taken when she was 10, and included in a work by Richard Prince, Spiritual America, created a row. It was removed from an exhibition at the Tate Modern after a warning from the police.
