Looking for a new party idea? Consider a Supermodel Bash, where your daughter and her friends can strut their stuff on a runway, pose for cover shots, sip faux champagne and decorate picture frames as mementos! If you keep the focus on fun, not body image, it's sure to be a confidence booster, say parents who have tried it.

"A modeling party is harmless as long as the goal is having fun," says Salt Lake City mom, Linda Mattson. "My daughter, Tawni, and her friends had a blast at their supermodel party. The girls raved about dressing up and posing with friends!"

Penny Lane, vice president of Penway Productions and Modeling Parties in Chicago, Ill., agrees. "To keep this type of party from focusing on body type, I make it clear that the girls are going to learn what models do to prepare for a photo in a magazine and to hold a fashion show," Lane says. "They will become models for a day and have fun."

Lane encourages the girls to support each other with applause and to help each other pick out clothes, accessories and makeup. The girls act as a team, says Lane, lending and borrowing items as needed for the show's success.

Confidence Booster
Preteens often learn self-confidence at the party as they model for friends in a safe environment. Lane advises each girl to pretend they are selling the outfits.

"Girls can be overweight or underweight or even disabled -- notice the amount of wheelchairs, crutches and casts in photos in the last few years -- and their job is to concentrate on doing a good job selling the clothes, not on who comes out looking the best," she says.

Why do so many girls want to model?

"It's exciting and very glamorous," says Monica Chan, instructor for the Barbizon School of Modeling in San Francisco.p>

Like Lane, Chan says that modeling classes improve self-esteem by teaching students how to present themselves with poise and confidence. Chan offers the following tips to ensure runway success for your young supermodels:

• Smile! People are nice and they'll smile back.
• Stand tall and don't slouch.
• Always look at the audience. There's nothing interesting to see on the floor or ceiling.
• Defeat nerves by meeting the audience's gaze. Focusing on someone else will make you forget that you're nervous.

Party Preparations
Invite potential supermodels to the party well in advance. The girls will need plenty of time to burn up the phone lines planning their wardrobes. Each girl should bring two of her favorite outfits to model at the party. Remind everyone to include accessories to share with friends.

What should you do about a modeling ramp?

"Make one!" Mattson says. For her party, she bought several yards of red fabric from a discount store.

Buy approximately 30 feet if you can accommodate a long runway. The girls will love dancing down the red carpet. You can unroll the fabric outside if the weather cooperates, or slide the living room furniture to one side of the room and set the ramp up in the vacant space for an indoor show.

Enlist the help of a willing husband or friend to act as the Master of Ceremonies. While your helper MCs the fashion show, you'll snap pictures of the girls posing at the end of the runway. To make a microphone for your MC, cover the bristles of a round brush with foil.

After a whirlwind photo session and pounding the ramp, the models will crave food and drink. Buy plastic champagne glasses and fill them with sparkling soda. The girls will love celebrating a successful show by savoring faux champagne at their wrap party. To stave off hunger, order or make the ultimate party-girl food: pizza. Also, bake a rectangle cake and decorate it like a camera or make cupcakes and cover them with white frosting and silver and gold candy sprinkles.

Don't forget music. Ask your child for musical suggestions that will create an upbeat, party mood. She may already own appropriate tapes or CDs, or she can borrow music from a friend.

Create a dressing room so the girls can primp before hitting the runway. Provide amenities like brushes, hand-held mirrors, hair spray, assorted hair clips and barrettes. Add inexpensive perfume and make-up, of course.

Showtime
"I printed out a questionnaire for the girls to fill out when they arrived at the party," says Mattson. She included questions about outfits, school grade, favorite class, subject, color, hobbies and sports interests. Her husband, the MC, used the questionnaires to rave about the supermodels during the fashion show.

Your MC might say, "Beautiful Brittany is in the 6th grade and attends Willowcrest Middle School. She likes 'N Sync, gymnastics and a blonde boy in her Spanish class. She's wearing a tie-dyed crewneck shirt and red A-line skirt."

After the girls answer their questions, usher them into the dressing room. Give them plenty of time to primp. Crank up the music to let the models know that the fashion show is about to begin. Once the girls are lined up and ready, have the MC announce the first supermodel.

The girls will love pirouetting down the ramp and swooning for the camera. Have each girl pose at the end of the ramp for a photo or two.

The MC should announce "It's a wrap!" when the girls finish modeling. Send the announcer to a nearby 1-hour photo lab to develop the film while the supermodels celebrate their successful fashion show. The girls will feast on pizza and cake, sip faux champagne, make a picture frame, and before they know it, the pictures will be back.

Pretty As the Pictures
The preteens will love making our bejeweled picture frame to show off their modeling photos. You'll need:

• Cardboard picture frame
• Colored buttons
• Faux jewels and/or beads
• Glitter
• Sequins
• Glue

Glue buttons and jewels onto the picture frame. Add sparkle with glitter and sequins. Let each girl choose a picture from the show to put into her frame, and several other photos to take home with her.