Crowd reaction to the slightly undersize model at designer Gai Mattiolo's Feb. 28 Milan show was, appropriately, understated. "Average clapping," says fashion photographer Stefano Guindani. But the model herself was anything but average. Walking the runway in Mattiolo's high-dollar duds was none other than 16-year-old Lauren Bush, the 5'7" granddaughter of former President George Bush and niece of the current Prez, George W. "I chose Lauren because she's the image of the new America," the designer said after the show.
Certainly she seems to share her family's conservative bent. Though Mattiolo is known for his barely-there gowns, Lauren, who has been modeling for print ads (Abercrombie & Fitch, Elite jeans) since she was 13, made her runway debut in two of his more conventional outfits, a black-and-white tube dress and a black bolero jacket with pants. And backstage, where she enjoyed the rare perk of her own dressing room, her mother, Sharon, 47, shooed away stylists until Lauren was "decent." (Her father, Neil, 46, runs a software business; brother Pierce is 15, sister Ashley, 12.) Lauren, a junior at Houston's private Kincaid School, is equally demure about her love life, brushing off questions about an alleged correspondence with Britain's Prince William. "It happened two years ago," she told Women's Wear Daily in January. "Why is everyone bringing it up now?"
As for Lauren's catwalk performance, W, the fashion bible, hasn't yet weighed in. Neither has the other W—the one in the White House.
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