'New Naomi' is only 12

Gerren Taylor is perched nervously backstage, watching in awe as Alexander McQueen puts the final touches to the clothes draped on angular models who are smoking cigarettes through painted lips. Despite this being Gerren's catwalk debut, at 5ft 10in, with full lips, clear skin and long legs visible under a sparkly dress, she blends into the melee perfectly. The only difference is that she is not yet in her teens. Her agent has told her not to open her mouth, worried her voice will betray how young she is.

"Whatever you do, just don't act like you're 12," he warns. Although the McQueen organisers are aware of her age, no one wants to draw attention to it.

Her agent confides that she has been practising her walk in front of a mirror. Any nerves seem to evaporate, though, as she saunters down the catwalk, giving no one cause to believe she is anything but an experienced model. Afterwards, her agent excitedly declares her a hit - "Everyone loved her!" - and Gerren herself is unfazed by the stir she has caused. "I guess I'm just a natural," she says, grinning.

Despite her age, Gerren is currently the fashion world's hottest property. She is the youngest person ever to be signed with the LA Models agency and is being fêted as the next Naomi Campbell. As well as making her debut at the McQueen show in the US, she has appeared in seven catwalk shows, done a shoot for Teen Vogue magazine, and is in the new advert for Volvo. This week she will be a guest on 20/20, the high-profile American chat show, and next weekend she will be working with David Beckham's favourite designer, Roberto Cavalli.

This is all a sharp contrast with her home life - she isn't allowed to wear make-up when she's not working, and her bedroom floor is covered with Barbie dolls, skates and schoolwork. She never misses volleyball practice or church meetings. "If modelling goes pearshaped," she says, "I want to be a vet." And, like many pre-teens, she eats junk food by the bucketful.

Her steep rise to success began last year when she was handed a flyer for a modelling competition while out shopping with her mother, Michele, near their West LA home. "A woman gave Gerren an entry form. It offered a $250,000 contract prize," says Michele. "I told her she was too young to enter but that, if she was really keen, we would visit an agency.

"LA Models' address was on the back so we went there." Heinz Holba, the agency's director, signed Gerren on the spot and has been inundated with requests for her to work ever since.

Many clients, including McQueen, are astounded by her physical maturity. Her agent has been told on numerous occasions that she has the presence of Kate Moss, Gisele Bundchen and Jerry Hall on the catwalk - all models who achieved their first international success before they hit 16. Holba says: "We don't use her age to sell her. If anything, we try to keep the focus away from it because people expect some immature schoolgirl."

Not all the publicity has been positive. The fact that a 12-year-old model is in regular work has renewed the argument about whether using very young girls in advertising campaigns or on the catwalk is ethical. While designers love their boyish frames and perfect skin, many argue that pre-pubescent girls should not be working in an environment that is often bitchy, highly competitive and image obsessed. "Backstage is not a place for a 12-year-old," says one stylist. "The girls are often semi-naked, frequently smoking and drinking."

The fashion world has begun to take steps to protect young girls. In France, the Chambre Syndicale, organisers of Paris Fashion Week, have imposed a lower limit of 16 for catwalk work. In Milan, though, a lack of regulation has seen girls such as the Estonian model, Tiiu, treading the catwalk at just 15. A spokesperson for Select Models in London confirms: "There isn't a specific law about age - it's more an unspoken rule within the industry. Our youngest girls are 13 or 14. If we see someone younger, we'll just keep an eye on them until they are older."

Likewise, a spokesperson for Condé Nast, publishers of Vogue and Glamour, says: "We have a policy of not using underage models in any of our titles. All our fashion models are 16 or above." Michele is aware that her decision to support her daughter's career is controversial, but insists her daughter isn't being exploited. When Gerren was asked to pose provocatively at one shoot recently, she was marched out by her mother. "They asked her to pull up her skirt a bit and I said 'No, that is not going to happen.'"

Still, that hasn't prevented several searing attacks appearing on feminist websites, but Michele remains undeterred. "It was Gerren who expressed a wish to become a model and I am simply supporting that. It is all fun to her. She couldn't do child modelling because she is too tall, and she earns more as an adult. But the day she stops enjoying it is the day I'll say 'That's it, enough!'"

Michele, 42, attends every photo shoot, casting call and backstage show with her daughter. She admits it is as much a learning process for her. "I am aware that there are aspects of modelling that are unsavoury," she says.

"Many of the experienced girls have told me about the eating disorders, the drugs and drink. The agency protects her to make sure she is not exposed to that side of things."

As a single mother - "I am not separated or divorced from Gerren's father, let's just say he is absent" - with no other children, Michele laughs off accusations that she is a gold digger. After working as a freelance TV editor for years, she is now also studying to become a film director. "I make enough money myself. Every cent that Gerren makes is being put into an account that she can't access until she is 18," she says. "Yes, she can have money to buy clothes and things she wants, but it is not going to affect her upbringing." Besides, she says, for many of her assignments, Gerren has been paid in clothes, such as a Richard Tyler black evening gown, rather than cash.

If the current attention is anything to go by, her limited earnings won't stay that way for long. New York model agencies are hammering on the door to get her on their books; designers such as Richard Tyler are queuing up to work with her, and Alexander McQueen wants her back on his catwalk later this year.

Next stop is likely to be London. "She is desperate to go there," Michele says. "But I don't want her to miss her childhood, and she can't fall behind with her grades. She is still a child. There is plenty of time for Gerren Taylor the model."