ABSTRACT
With few exceptions, American girls between the ages of ve and twelve wear clothing styles that closely approximate mainstream adult fashion.1 Like adult styles, the preferred look for young girls is predicated on popular culture and current fashion trends. Everything from the latest movie and music videos to Paris runways and urban street chic is fair game for children’s designers. Advertisements for these fashion forward styles reverberate with notions of creativity, individuality and youthful exuberance – all the necessary buzzwords for the juvenile market and modern parenting alike. ere are style exceptions to this and they reside primarily in the realm of special occasion clothing , the garb worn for holidays, weddings and formal portraits. ese are the moments when children are particularly on display and when young girls are asked or compelled to wear classic clothing presented to them as more appropriate. For these occasions and the photographs that document them, the classic style is grounded in an eighteenth-century model. is was the pictorial moment when western childhood was philosophically and materially reconceptualized, visualized in portraiture dominated by Sir Joshua Reynolds , and popularized through Royal Academy exhibitions, the London press and a burgeoning print trade.
