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| Five-year-old style icon Alonso Mateo of Mexico (Photo: Instagram @alonso_mateo) |
Have you ever look at old pictures when you were kid and feel embarrass of what your mother dress you up? Long pink puffy dress, big bow or superhero suit? I have, sometimes. I wish my mother have a little better taste. But some kids doesn't have to worry about this when they grow up.
Maya Singer reports on “Inside the world high fashion for children” that high-price childrenswear from luxury fashion brands is now a huge business. It was made to satisfy rich fashionable mothers which, Singer points out, view their children as their accessories by dressing up their kid to match with them.
According to Singer, Suri Cruis, the Beckham kids, the Jolie-Pitts kids and instagram celebrity, Alonso Mateo are today's kid fashion icon. Some magazine compares one kid with another such as Suri vs. Shiloh (Jolie's kid), Suri vs. Aila (Alexander Wang's niece) and so on. We love seeing their photo because they are cute and stylish, and the mothers love to show off their kid to present their taste and style. I have no surprise that more and more clothing brands will open kid line as long as people have purchasing power. Anyway, dress up nice won't hurt anyone.
When I read this article to the part when Pippa Voster, former fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar UK, talks about if her son get to an age where he can decide what to wear by himself, I almost crack up because this is so true for some people. This reminds me of my boss, Executive Creative Director of JWT Shanghai, who is vey much into fashion. His wife also works in creative industry. They both have fun dressing up their kids. I could say their kids are the most fashionable kids in Shanghai. But, it cmae to the day their heart was broken, his son ask them to buy Disney's “Cars 2” t-shirt. My boss strongly disapprove so his wife sneakily bought it and his son can only wear it when my boss was away.
This article also bring back another experience of mine when I did advertisement for children brand last year in China. The ad features 7 girls, age from 3-9 years old. When we photo shoot them we put on a little make up and dress them up with simple t-shirt, shorts and sneaker and a tough of accessory because we wanted them to look natural which, we think, was suitable for their age. However, at the end of the day, all girls changed to their normal dress, I was shocked! Their normal cloth is definitely not what I pictured. Glitter tee, feather Jacket, super short skirt, heels, fancy hair and lots of make-up were put on. Their mothers are over-dressed them and their normal dresses are like kids version of Lady Gaga. I can't imagine what would they become when they grow up. Looking back again, my mom's taste actually wasn't that bad at all.
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Reference
Singer, M. (2013, July 23). Inside the world high fashion for children. BBC Culture. Retrieved August 6, 2013 from http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130723-has-kids-fashion-gone-too-far
I think parents should treat their kids as individuals, not some kind of accessories or toys. I remember seeing Suri with high heels. I'm a little shocked to see a kindergarten girl with that sort of shoes. I wonder what Katie Holmes was thinking. It should be the kid's health before beauty.
ReplyDeleteAnother point is buying brand names for kids when they can't earn by themselves completely spoil them. I don't think they value the things they have enough when it's easy to get and they don't have to work hard to get them. I remember an 11-year-old british girl - I don't remember her name though, but it was on youtube - was completely spoiled by her parents. Her mom will buy her every brand names she wanted which costed millions of baht. From head to toe, they are all brand names. She even used a lot of makeup and dyed her hair blonde. I think children need good guidance rather than money and sophisticated styles.
Parents may get used to dressing their kids when they were babies and couldn't help themselves at all, so when the kids grow up, they treat these children the same way they did before. I think when children grow up, parents should guide them, not choosing for them. However, I still see a lot of parents still treat their kids like babies, choosing everything on behalf of them including clothes.
Perhaps such controlled children will have the good sense, when they grow up, to get rid of their childish parents. I mean just leave them alone, not get rid of as in "kill".
DeleteI wonder if this is a modern thing or not. I remember looking at art from earlier times and the children were either dressed like adults, especially if of high social status, or were often naked if infants used for decoration. I just did a quick Google on the search term "children in renaissance art", and this seems to confirm my suspicion that there is nothing new in the trend that My reports on.
ReplyDeletethat's interesting, Peter. I have never thought about it before. Thanks for sharing the link. So this idea is not new at all. I guess it human nature that like to show off.
DeleteI also follow instragram of the mother who is her son is a fashion icon(the mother of the boy in your blog post). I have read her interview that the mother is a stylist and her son was watching and learning what to wear from his mother. When this boy is old enough, he wanted to choose his own clothes. And the mother let him do it by himself, when they shopping clothes together, mother allows her son to choose what he wants. Even though the price are very high, she will buy it for her son in two conditions that it must be great quality and she can afford.
ReplyDeleteThat sound reasonable for me. I never have chance to choose my own cloth until I was in middle school. Even today, my mother still comment on how I dress and sometimes still buy my cloth that I don't really want to wear.
DeleteMy mother was like My's - she bought all my clothes until I left school, but at least as I got older, she let me choose a bit. When I was in primary school, she once bought me a pair of very loose, purple shorts. I hated them: the looked like a short skirt in an awful colour. I think I wore them once. Thankfully, most of her choices weren't that bad, just boring. The purple shorts certainly weren't boring.
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