Janetta Mackay: This year's model

Kendall Jenner walked in the Chanel show at Paris Fashion Week. Picture / AP Images.

When the pictures of Kim Kardashian's over-oiled butt went round the globe, it's a fair bet that inside the inner sanctum of Estee Lauder some wondered what they hell they'd done in signing up her little half-sister.

Prestige brands like to pretend everything is about class, not commerce, and the Kardashians are surely the antithesis of that approach.

For sure, pretty 19-year-old model Kendall Jenner looks way less tacky and more trim than the older Ks, but she's still a reality TV show celebrity child.

Kendall is also serious clickbait and that is why she is the new face of Estee Lauder.

Forget that designers and Vogue have been parading her as the new face of fashion, she's having a moment because she's a name with social media pulling power rather than as yet a great model. For mature brands wanting to move more into the online arena, her 15 million Instagram followers are gold.

Good luck to Kendall in building her modelling career - getting a lucrative cosmetic contract so early is a coup - but mostly well done for fleeing the coop of the small screen. I'm not a Kardashians follower, but that said I would have loved to have tuned in to see the unedited expression on Kim's face when she found out that Kendall had scored a Vogue spread without a superstar husband.

Sex tapes and media stunts take a girl only so far. The depressing thing is how far.

My 13-year-old tells me the Kardashians are "funny, but kind of trag ... " Their lives, she says, look glamorous but they worry way too much about what they look like. It would be nice to have lots of money like them, but not to spend so much of it on your appearance. So maybe there's hope.

Media-savvy teenagers and companies will inherit the earth. Lauder, of course, will be hoping Kendall does inspire people to spend more on their appearance. My consumer of the future assures me Kendall is "really pretty" and way less fake-looking than her sisters, so that augurs well. Whether Kendall becomes one of those dominant advertising faces that Lauder has had a knack for choosing over the years remains to be seen.

- VIVA