School Fashions

(Released to the web October 28, 2007)

At a recent back-to-school night presentation in Readington a Powerpoint slideshow flashed pictures of students up on a big screen for parents to watch.  Partway into the slide show some parents in the audience began to notice a common denominator in the dress of the students in the pictures, and it wasn't long before those parents were counting the number of Abercrombie & Fitch-labeled shirts, hats and sweatshirts in each picture.  It was amusing at first, but the conformity to fashionable name brands became disturbing as the slideshow continued.

Anyone who has visited a mall lately to shop for clothing has surely noticed retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfitters, Limited Too, Justice, Hollister, Pac Sun, and Aeropostale who market heavily to the younger crowd.  Reaching children through sophisticated methods of branding, promotion, packaging and advertising, these retailers are making significant efforts to cultivate spending and loyalty in children from age seven on up.  And, they are making very good headway, often without parents being aware of how deep and how strong the undercurrent of fashion and brand has become for children in middle school and high school.  This manipulation of tweens and teens is reinforced by messages in television, internet and print media too.  Even non-apparel vendors like Apple are tapping into the undercurrent of fashion to make their products "must-haves" for the younger set.

Fashion consciousness is nothing new, of course, and today's parents probably remember arguing with their own parents about the merits of Levi, Wrangler or Toughskin jeans when they were kids.  What is new today, however, is the sophistication and depth of marketing efforts and the extent to which children are judging and even bullying each other over brand name labels.  Some also worry about the nature of the clothing, such as overtly sexual styles now pushed on young girls or vanity sizing, where clothing is purposely mislabeled by vendors to promote an idea of a smaller body frame.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal noted that kids, and especially girls, are forging their own identity based on brand labels, bullying peers based on the clothing they wear or don't wear, and wearing the "right" clothing again and again so as to avoid being seen in the wrong outfit.  Both boys and girls, though, are caught up in this game and are equally likely to judge peers based on fashion. Tweens and teens naturally tend to form cliques and spend more time in front of the mirror anyway, but with the big money marketing of today's retailers being reinforced by cultural trends in media and in schools, there is little to stop brand awareness as the arbiter of who is popular or who is sidelined.  Turn on television shows like High School Musical and The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, and you will find promotional tie-ins, advertising and brand placement all encouraging attention to the needs of corporate brands over the needs of developing children.  Amazingly, some parents are even encouraging this trend.

To fight the effects of fashion consciousness and other distractions, school uniforms are often argued to be an effective step.  The idea is that, once freed of the possibility of competing with each other over labels and fashions through a mandatory dress code, children will settle down and focus on more important things.  Formal studies, though, have not shown school uniforms to be as effective as proponents claim. Efforts to put in place school uniform policies often backfire and cause more trouble than existed before.  So, what is the answer?  Must we accept the juggernaut of school fashion and it's effect on behavior and identity, or is there a means to bring about a healthier balance?

Parents, who ultimately control the purse strings, have the most control.  In affluent areas like Readington, parents can help their children preserve a sense of balance by more closely monitoring their child's television viewing, media consumption and internet use and by more often walking past certain stores in the mall.  Tweens and teens are at an age where their self-identity is developing and when they need the opportunity to express themselves freely.  Cutting off their ability to use dress and fashion as part of that development is pointless and counter-productive, but parents can exert modest pressure to examine brand-related purchases in a wider context than just the approval of peers.  Helping your children to see that they are being manipulated or at least expressing disapproval for the idea that one's worth or status depends on the label on one's shirt can be a step in the right direction.  In the long run children do respond to parental disapproval, whatever the immediate reaction may be.

Parents and schools both must become better at framing the fashion choices kids make in ways that emphasize clearer thinking and a stronger awareness of self.  For schools that means lessons and curricula about the American value of  individual identity in society, about critical analysis of all communication, including an understanding of manipulative advertising and promotion techniques, and about celebrating difference rather than seeking the safety of cultural sameness.  There are countless opportunities to incorporate such lessons in subjects like social studies and history, language arts, art, and math.  History is full of examples of societies building on the strength of individual sacrifice and achievement or veering toward destruction on a path of conformity.  In language arts, programs exist to help students understand how marketers subtly manipulate attitudes and habits of potential buyers through advertising, branding and promotion.  In art, students can become more aware of how images are used in commercial settings to affect attitudes.  In math, students can be shown the statistical and monetary relationships between spending by children and their parents and the success of fashion vendors.

As in a previous article on this website stressing the importance of teaching children to critically evaluate internet-based information, a similar call to action here is about the need to teach our children how to avoid being manipulated, how to recognize their role in the influence of others, how to forge a unique personal style and identity, and how to find their way in a world far more dangerous and available than ever before.  This isn't about specific lines of clothing brands, but about raising children who can think for themselves and stand up for what they believe is right.  An Abercrombie-labeled sweatshirt in a child's closet isn't a menace to society, but a child who develops a manner of living based largely on the acceptance of peers could be.