At 19, Emma Watson is the face of Burberry. Photo / AP

At 19, Emma Watson is the face of Burberry. Photo / AP

Bitter old person berates the state of today's youth: it's one of the oldest cliches known to man. Which is why it was so painful for me to realise recently that I was becoming one of those cynical old people who passed judgment on the bevy of hot young things that populate the fashion industry I work in. The young models. The wannabe fashion writers desperate to get a job as "glamorous" as mine. The 15-year-old girls at fashion parties being photographed wearing head-to-toe designer clothes, shoes and accessories (how do they afford it?). Earnest young designers who talk about deep and complex inspirations when, really, they're just making clothes.

Um, where did all these young people come from, and when did I become so old?

Fashion has always loved pretty young girls, it always will - just as it will always have a penchant for skinnier models over curvaceous ones. But this obsession with youth seems to have gone into overdrive recently.

There's Tavi of course, the 13-year-old fashion blogger and self-proclaimed "dork" obsessed with Rei Kawakubo.

She is adorable, winning over high-profile fans like Marc Jacobs and the sisters behind Rodarte, appearing on the cover of the latest Pop and being seated front row at New York Fashion Week last month.

Adorable, yes, but is it natural for a 13-year-old to be so obsessed with fashion and is it appropriate for a 13-year-old to wear spike-heeled ankle boots? The same could be asked of the young models who parade down the runways: is it really appropriate for teenage girls to be selling clothes to more mature women, the ones who actually buy the clothes that are on display?

It's not just models either: the media's fascination with "new style icons" continues to focus on those in their teens (except for the token article every six months or so that ambitiously proclaims that older women are the new style icons).

Actress Emma Watson is only 19 and already considered a fashionista; she recently appeared in a campaign for Burberry. The latest issue of British Vogue features an assortment of stylish precocious young things banging on about their personal style - 16-year-old model Tali Lennox (her mum is Annie Lennox), 19-year-old internet celebrity Cory Kennedy, 17-year-old actress Kaya Scodelario, who plays Effy in Skins. Peaches and Pixie Geldof, 20 and 19 respectively, are proclaimed as "style heroines" and covergirl Georgia Jagger, 17, lauded as "fashion's new bombshell".

Katie Grand's highly anticipated second issue of Love magazine was dedicated entirely to youth, with no one over the age of 21 featured throughout - think Taylor Swift, 19, Miley Cyrus, 16, Taylor Momsen, 16, and Coco Sumner, 19 (her daddy is Sting). Charles Guislain also features in a fashion spread; he is a 16-year-old Parisian boy with a icy blond crop and incredible androgynous wardrobe who has caught the eye of street-style photographers and writer Diane Pernet. He's one of those kids who frequents fashion shows looking fabulous; one day he wants to be a designer. Grand described Love in her editor's letter as an homage to the "new wave of teenage talent that is taking over the American mainstream". It seems kind of ironic that the back page features a Louis Vuitton ad with the youth-obsessed 51-year-old Madonna.