Abstract
Consumption practices of children in contemporary Western societies are implicated in the reconstruction of childhood, according to both popular debate and to those academic perspectives stressing the individualisation of identities within the life course of late modern consumer societies. Yet, little is known about the meanings children themselves give to their own consumption. Drawing from an ethnographic study of children aged 6–11 years and their families, the paper presents girls’ constructions of fashion in relation to their own bodies and to those of others. It is shown that although girls may both desire and actually ‘dress up’ in fashionable clothing, they present a range of contingent and contradictory meanings for doing so. For some girls, ‘dressing up’ in certain clothes may be a way of ‘ageing up’ toward feminine adulthood, albeit in restricted contexts and after negotiations between themselves and their parents as to what can be worn and where. Nonetheless, girls in the study also showed anxieties and disapproval of ‘showing the body’ through ‘revealing’ clothing. The article concludes by considering the implication of these findings for debates about gendered childhoods, and intergenerational relations in late modern consumer society.
Highlights
Consumption practices of children in contemporary Western societies are implicated in the reconstruction of childhood, according to both popular debate and to those academic perspectives stressing the individualisation of identities within the life course of late modern consumer societies
The meanings of girls’ encounters with controversial clothing fashion should not be ‘read off’ from market trends, or from media debates or the concerns of parents. They need exploring through an engagement with girls’ everyday practices of clothing consumption. It is these concerns that have influenced the approach taken in the wider study of children, consumption and fashion, of which this paper is a part
Following focus group interviews with parents, fieldwork was undertaken in England in 2003-4 with eight families
Summary
Consumption practices of children in contemporary Western societies are implicated in the reconstruction of childhood, according to both popular debate and to those academic perspectives stressing the individualisation of identities within the life course of late modern consumer societies. Drawing from an ethnographic study of children aged 6 to 11 years and their families, the paper presents girls' constructions of fashion in relation to their own bodies and to those of others. It is shown that girls may both desire and 'dress up' in contested clothing, they present a range of contingent and contradictory meanings for doing so. The article concludes by considering the implication of these findings for debates about gendered childhoods, and intergenerational relations in late modern consumer society
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