Style matters

Kids' fashion

Bengaluru is known for its lively and accepting attitude when it comes to keeping up with the latest trends. And today it’s not just the youngsters who are mastering over this, many children between the age of six and 13 are seen to have gained more knowledge about fashionable styles and trends.

“It is a struggle for us as parents to keep up with the changing fashion among children. My older daughter Eva is going to be eight in a month and the younger one Zara is five and a half. There is a lot of influence of television and internet on them. They observe and grasp everything quickly, and fashion is something that catches one’s attention easily. They want to be like the adults and follow an elder girl or a boy’s dress sense. It is similar to what we as kids used to do by draping a dupatta around, pretending to wear a sari. However, that was different as I don’t remember fighting or being stubborn about what I want to wear or how I want to look.”

   She adds, “It is the same with my girls. I find it difficult and I struggle with something, which I think I would have to face a lot more during their teenage years. But it is not anything less that I am dealing with now that they are just five and eight years old. As a parent, I have set some boundaries and that’s the only way I can stop them from wanting things that might not be good for them.”

Kids and teens today have become more fashion conscious and they want to look presentable at all times— be it dressing for a birthday party, attending a music concert or simply for festivals like Deepavali or Christmas. “Kids are growing too fast these days. We probably didn’t even know what fashion was and we used to wear whatever was given to us and assumed that we looked good. But the scene is different now. Kids nowadays have a mind of their own and they want to sport only specific style and design. I guess they learn a lot from watching television. They idolise celebrities and want to dress like them. Looking good has become extremely important because if they don’t dress well, they just don’t feel good about themselves. Crop tops, halter and spaghetti tops and off- shoulder dresses are my daughter Ishanika’s new found interest. She has a Mickey Mouse crop top that she wears quite often,” shares Snigdha Chauhan.

These kids’ clothes are nothing but replicas of what youngsters ideally wear. With various colours, patterns and graphic designs, varied necklines, t-shirts with stylish statements; kids these days have a wide range to choose from. “Children nowadays are definitely becoming more fashion conscious. One of the biggest reasons is that they have plenty of access to social media including following trends on Instagram, fashion blogs and various people on Youtube and SnapChat. Online shopping websites for all kinds of price brackets, newer bigger stores like those abroad and fashion apps have become increasingly popular amongst the teens. They have been exposed to the world of fashion at a very young age, due to their digital obsession — be it phones, iPads or laptops — everything seems to be easy at our finger tips,” says designer Nandita Thirani.

This trend is not just limited to the clothes they wear but also the different accessories they carry along. The fashionable sling bags, the thick strap watches, the ‘bandanas’ and the mid-calf boots teamed with tights are making them the new trendsetters. But what is disappearing is the expected innocence of an ideal kid or a teen.

Ankita Shekhar, a fashion blogger for ‘The Bangalore Snob’, says, “I see school kids, who should be playing and having fun with friends, are more bothered about what brand of matt lipstick to wear or what brand top to wear.  It is disheartening to see them like this as their innocence is getting lost somewhere. You see them adapting to the outfit of a 30-year-old model and  this is not what one wants to see a 13-year-old wearing. It is not an age where one is deciding on what peplum top to wear or on picking stuffs from various brands.”

   “My advice would be to dress according to our age and parents should be mindful that these trends look good at a particular age and not when the kids are small. I see a lot of kids wearing crop tops and skirts tailored for them with boots. These styles don’t go  well for someone who is sixteen. The age demands for certain kind of dressing and we should be mindful of that,” she adds.