You know when you read something and can't quite believe you've read it, so you read it a couple more times just to make sure you aren't going completely insane? Apparently, this past month saw the launch of the inaugural Global Kids Fashion Week, complete with couture catwalk shows where Mini-Moss's strutted their stuff in front of the fashion pack. I'll say that again. Global Kids Fashion Week. With catwalk shows. And child models.
Ok, so I know fashion is big business, and I'm not naive enough to think that there isn't money to be made in selling clothes to children (£6.5 billion pounds in the UK, apparently. Most of that is probably spent on replacing the trousers of small boys who cannot get through a day without skidding on their knees at some point) but a FASHION WEEK?!! Someone please tell me I'm not the only person who thinks there's something inherently wrong in this?
It's not just the ridiculous amounts of money people spend on their children's clothes (according to the Indy, one mum at the catwalk show took along her two year old - a two year old! To a fashion show! - and the little darling was wearing, and I quote, "a leopard-print jacket from Gap, gold metallic jeans 'just from Baby K', and patent knee-high Leila Kella boots" and said she would happily spend more money on her daughter's clothes than her own). PATENT KNEE HIGH BOOTS!!! She's TWO!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that is apparently completely normal because this two year old "loves shopping". Oh really? Well then can I have her, because every two year old I've ever seen in a shop has either been screaming its head off or asleep. If you have one that doubles as both cute shopping buddy and offspring, then I'm all in. You could make a fortune. Seriously, you should go on Dragons Den with this, they'd love it...
Before I even go anywhere else with this argument/rant, I would like to point out two things, both of which I would hope are glaringly obvious to any of you with even half a braincell. Firstly, two year olds have a habit of being both slightly unsteady on the feet (thereby falling over a lot and either getting dirty or ripping holes in their hitherto-untouched clothes). Secondly, they have a truly irritating habit of growing at a rate of knots when you least expect it, ensuring that there is absolutely NOTHING in their wardrobe that fits them practically overnight. And don't even get me started on their shoes. Bearing this in mind, WHY would you spend a small fortune buying them couture this that and the other when it will either be outgrown or damaged beyond repair within a week?!! I mean what?!! Actually, while we're on the pointing-out-the-glaringly-obvious thing, I would like to add that no two year old should be wearing patent knee high boots. No child should EVER wear patent knee high boots. Jesus Christ, are you INSANE?!! No wonder the sexualistion of children seems to be on the up if this is considered acceptable behaviour.
That brings me to my second "wtf?!" moment. One of the other mums at this fright show is, and again I quote the dear old Indy, "a personal stylist for other people's children" (she already has one of her own). A STYLIST FOR CHILDREN?!!!! Dear GOD, no wonder the rates of adolescent eating disorders and body dysmorphia are on the rise if children now have to compete with each other in the fashionista stakes at pre-school!!! Don't talk to Chamomile, darling, her Pull-Up Pants are sooooo last season!!!
I would dearly love to be able to chalk this up purely to the realms of the Yummy Mummies and their ridiculous "we have so much money and time we don't know what to do with it all" weirdness, but sadly I don't think I can. For, while Global Kids Fashion Week (god, that brings me out in a rash just typing it) is probably at the extreme end of things, there's no doubt that the overt sexualisation of children through their clothes has already seeped down to the high street (remember the bras for six year old's, anyone? And those "slogan" t-shirts which are basically asking paedophiles and perverts to stare at your offspring?) And the whole sense of "competing" and "fitting in" has also started seeping down. Five year old's get admitted to hospital for anorexia. My friend's daughter, aged seven, told me she was too fat to wear a swimsuit last summer. (I cried, afterwards). I see children in shops having the screaming ab-dabs because Mummy can only afford Primark and they want Pucci like Saskia done the road.
This madness has to stop. What is so wrong with letting children be children; with letting them run around and cause havoc and ruin their clothes, which you don't mind about because you got them from a charity shop or Tesco or something (and what's wrong with a few holes anyway?) They grow up too damn fast as it is, and there's enough pressure on them to comply with the Beauty Myth - boys as well as girls - when they reach adolescence. Is it too much to ask that you let your two year old run around in battered dungarees and have FUN...?
No comments:
Post a Comment