For first time, nine-year-old amputee became model at Paris Fashion Week

News24xx.com -  For the first time, Daisy-May Demetre, will be model for children's wear label Lulu et Gigi inside the Eiffel Tower.

Nine years old Daisy-May Demetre  whose legs were amputated due to a birth defect, became the first to walk the runway in Paris Fashion Week on Friday.

Born in Birmingham, Britain, Daisy-May's lower legs were amputated due to fibular hemimelia - a lack or shortening of the calf bone - when she was 18 months old. She started modeling for UK clothing brands a year ago and has walked at the London Kids' Fashion Week in February and at the New York Fashion Week earlier this month.

Daisy-May uses carbon blades for running and on the catwalk, but for school she has a different set of prosthetic legs.

She told Reuters Television she loves putting pretty clothes on and posing for the camera.

Her father Alex Demetre told Reuters he had taken to drinking and gambling after she was born and even had suicidal thoughts worrying about how her handicap was going to affect her life.

After seeing a TV show about fashion, he proposed modeling to her and since then she has worked for several major UK clothing retailers as well as for sports brand Nike Inc.

"When she was born, we thought it was going to be the end of the world. How people were going to look at her, like boyfriends, and husbands. Now I see that she was a gift. Her disability is an actual gift and she wears that gift with pride. It does not hold her back in any way," he said.

NEWS24XX.COM/DEV/RED