So what was with all the noise about Dakota Fanning’s cover? As Fox News, always known for its nuanced reporting, revealed: ‘the sex-driven, how-to-please-your-man-in-bed magazine’ showed Dakota, who is still considered a minor in just over a fifth of US states (including North, but not South, Dakota) looking rather grown up and not at all out of place among the magazine’s typically sexy headlines, sparking media outrage and a campaign to have sale of the magazine to under-18s banned (yes, really). It’s still a relatively demure cover, with pretty hair and make up and a dress that, while low-cut and spangly, is by no means as provocative as, say, the ensemble that Britney Spears worked on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1999. And how old was Britters when she invited the reader into her heart, mind, and bedroom? Oh, that would be 17, the same as Dakota, who, if her comments to UK Elle are to be believed, has no intention of letting readers anywhere near her heart and mind, yet alone her bedroom. 

Britney: the picture of 17-year-old innocence.

For in the same month that she wound up half the United States, Dakota gave an interview with one of the most popular (and frank) women’s magazines in the UK. This cover was altogether classier, showing Fanning posing it up in new season Prada with a grown-up scarlet lip, but still channelling a much more age-appropriate vibe as was demonstrated by the generally positive reception that the cover received. The accompanying interview showed Fanning to be mature, poised, and utterly private (see a behind-the-scenes video here). And yet, towards the end of January, Elle’s Dakota Fanning cover began to mysteriously disappear, replaced by an image of the model Isabeli Fontana from one of the editorial pieces featured in the magazine. Did Elle choose to pull the cover in the wake of the backlash against Cosmopolitan? For once the internet is eerily silent…

Dakota Fanning covers the subscribers and newsstand covers of Elle UK. Photos by David Slijper.

While Dakota may be only just shy of her eighteenth birthday, the same is not true of her sister Elle (13) who, alongside Chloe Moretz (14) and Hailee Steinfeld (15) appeared on the cover of Love Magazine in July last year. These covers were ethereal and beautiful, utterly desexualised, showing each girl with a single tear running down her face. However, the only strapline was ‘432 pages of Discipline, Obsession & Desire’. High-fashion and artistic as these covers were, there’s still just as disturbing an element there as anything Annie Leibovitz coaxed out of Miley.

Neither was this cover the only fashion-related controversy Elle Fanning or Hailee Steinfeld have been involved in. Fanning was the face of Marc by Marc Jacobs F/W 2011-12, a decision that shocked some critics, but in a campaign that was ultimately deemed age appropriate (take a look here and make up your own mind). An image from Steinfeld’s campaign for Miu Miu was banned after being deemed ‘irresponsible’ for showing the actress apparently crying while sat on railway tracks. Maybe they have a point. On the other hand, the banning of Fanning senior’s ad for the Marc Jacobs perfume Oh Lola! seems to have been a piece of reactionary-ism too far.

Hailee Steinfeld: Tracks and tears are not to be mixed.

For the ultimate Lolita scandal of the past twelve months, however, we must look to the catastrophe that ensued in the wake of the Paris Vogue cover featuring ten-year-old model Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau. Widely thought to have led to the dismissal of Carine Roitfeld as editor of the magazine, the shoot excited universal outrage, with critics rushing forward to condemn the pictures. While we’re not usually on the side of the censors, we’re pretty sure there’s a line, and in this case, Vogue crossed it.

Pretty sure this isn't OK.

Have we missed any scandalous covers? Are you scandalised by those that we've found? Leave us your two cents in the comments box below.