The news that Canadian punky-pop singer Avril Lavigne has recently signed a contract to Ford Models, one of the industries most prestigious modeling agencies has been floating around the fashion and celebrity news blogs, and for some reason, hasn't yet raised any eyebrows. Well, none except mine.

Teentoday.co.uk reported that the singer “feels more like a lady and was happy to pose in Gucci and Channel [sic] for next month's Harper's Bazaar magazine.”

The folks over at Egotastic also love it:

“Avril Lavigne is taking this whole being a model thing to heart. She's got the whole look down, and yeah, she's hot, so it shouldn't be that hard for her.”

Though I agreed that Lavigne certainly looks the part of a model, and that as a celebrity, seems to be a natural choice to hawk luxury products, I’m confused as to why she thinks she can pull it off. I understand that teenage girls grow up in style, and that some make even 180-degree spin in personal dress. But as a celebrity, Lavigne has been long made fun of as a sort of mall rat punk rock poseur (its worth while to note that there are several anti-Avril websites such as this one), and was made famous in part to the gummy bracelets and Converse sneakers that made her so relatable to her fans (and loathsome to her non-fans). For someone who spent so much time scowling at the camera, I find the idea of her as model of the high-end products she now covets as kind of ironic.

Contactmusic.com quoted Lavigne saying:

"I want to do those really beautiful ads with the high-end products. I look through magazines and stare at ads and think, 'I'm not six feet tall, but I know I can do that."

Well, regardless of what I think, if she can actually pursue a successful modeling career, I hope that she can be taken a little more seriously then Nicole Richie, whose ad campaign for Jimmy Chew handbags was hilariously lampooned on AdRants.com

Personally, I’d prefer to see my luxury product ads with chickens.