Kids shouldn't have to play the fashion game

 
London calling: Stella McCartney is helping the capital keep its fashion crown
12 April 2012

I think I've worked out the real reason Harper Beckham is so called. Forget the talk of To Kill a Mockingbird, surely she was given that name to maximise her chances of achieving a maternal dream: her topping Harper's Bazaar's best-dressed list while still in her infancy?

At four months old, the Beckham daughter is being dubbed a "style icon", even though she has no choice what she wears. She has competition from her fellow famous "children of" though: there's Jessica Alba's three-year-old, who was last week pictured having a manicure and, of course, Suri Cruise, who, aged five, allegedly has a $150,000 shoe collection. Cruise was also recently described as "accessorising" with a cuddly toy.

Dressing your daughter as a mini-me is spreading beyond the famous too: Harrods has just started selling a £2,000 children's dress encrusted with Swarovski crystals.

Meanwhile, the young stars who have actually hit puberty and are famous in their own right - actresses Hailee Steinfeld, Chloe Moretz and Elle Fanning - are fronting labels' ad campaigns and gracing magazine covers, often looking as if they have raided their mothers' wardrobes.

Though I imagine the parents of both tot and teenage style queens are acting out of love, a child dripping in designer labels doesn't exactly chime with the economic mood. That may seem like the envious observation of someone forced as a child to wear cast-offs, including a baggy, colour-changing T-shirt that had been through the wash so many times that it was stuck between the two shades at sludge brown. Well, yes it is.

But it isn't just the ostentation that makes this trend for lamb-dressed-as-mutton disturbing. Women face enough pressure over their appearance without it starting in the cradle or at puberty.

The problem with this extreme feminine dressing of girls - make-up, heels and designer dresses - is that it suggests that what matters most is how they look, a message which society already trumpets loudly enough.

The company that makes the £2,000 frock, Pinco Pallino, describes it as "a princess-like limited piece in which high end crystals merge in rose patterns ... it is the It-dress every girl dreams of". Some girls don't dream of "It-dresses", though. I liked climbing trees, my ThunderCats sword and wellies.

This is fashion-determinism, when we should be past the stage when girls are told they are made of "sugar and spice and all things nice", when sons have to play outside and daughters must stick by their mothers' side.

A parentally imposed fixation on looking perfectly polished robs girls of their childhood: jumping in puddles and making mud pies. Perhaps that sludge brown hand-me-down wasn't quite so dreadful, after all.

Stella's star keeps on rising

It is officially Stella season. Ms McCartney's polka-dot sheer-panelled frocks from her autumn/winter collection have become as ubiquitous as the Roland Mouret Galaxy dress once was: worn by Kate Winslet, Liv Tyler, Jane Fonda, Louise Mensch MP and Blake Lively. In January, Selfridges will host a "World of Stella" exhibition before she returns to the capital for a one-off collection at London Fashion Week in February. Along with the first catwalk show for McQ (the Alexander McQueen diffusion label), McCartney's presence should help London keep its fashion capital crown. Then there's the Olympics, for which she has made Team GB's outfits.
It can't be too long before her Beatle dad starts being described as the "father of".

Don't punish young drivers

As a cyclist who only learned to drive for work and hasn't been behind the wheel in more than a year, I am clearly no car-lover. Yet even I can't support the Association of British Insurers' ageist and unworkable proposal for an 11pm curfew on young drivers.

Contrary to the way it was widely interpreted yesterday, the ABI had made an exemption for those working night shifts, but what about under-26s who live in the country or have to travel through a high-crime area to get home? Or those who get stuck in traffic and are still driving at 11:01pm? It would punish the sensible and the teetotal alongside the reckless.

This year, European regulators deemed it sexist to charge men more for their insurance than women. Yet picking on the young - who pay higher premiums - is allowed. Notably, the ABI hasn't chosen to single out young men, despite the threat of stereotypical boy racers. A far better solution - which recognises the issue is inexperience as well as age - would be for everyone to have a minimum learning period and to practise night driving before they take their test. Our road death statistics are horrifying - but alienating the young is not the right way to improve them.

Odd logic of an 'obedient wife'

The Obedient Wives Club - which charmingly advises Muslim women to act like "prostitutes" for their husbands - has come to the capital, last night making the case for polygyny at an Islamic Circles debate. Beyond the obvious misogyny of their demands that women be wholly submissive lies a demographic flaw in their support for male multi-marriage.

Due to sex-selective abortion, the world is low on women, sparking fears of unrest among the growing number of men destined to be forever bachelors. A more intellectually sound approach would be to argue in favour of polyandry.

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