For years a controversy has churned in the children’s fashion industry concerning just how fashion-forward girls dresses should be, especially girls dresses for toddlers and primary aged girls. Somewhere in the 1990’s a trend towards child sized adult fashion took hold of the children’s fashion market. Some of it is beneath concern for being age appropriate: miniature faux-fur collars and boleros, animal prints jazzed with pink backgrounds, a few marabou feathers for fluff, or some sequins and crystal accents. While these accents could be found at a very grown-up cocktail party, they are fun and festive for the very young as well. Sophisticated details in tasteful application have advanced the creativity of girls dresses by adding new textures, patterns, and arrangement of embellishments.
Concern for what is age appropriate among girls dresses relates more to the actual silhouette and construction of the garment. Styles most often deemed “too grown up” for girls dresses in our specialty shop are halter style tops, corset mimic bodices, plunging necklines, bare backs, fish tail skirts, very tightly fitted skirts and bodices, and extremely short skirts. For many religious centered special events, families cannot consider girls dresses that are sleeveless, have spaghetti straps, or are strapless completely. Some families have aversions to heavily decorated girls dresses embellished with an abundance of sequins, appliqués, or lace.
Girls dresses in many colors raise concerns as being too mature as well. Colors most often in question at our shop tend to be dark colors, black is the most controversial. Red is perhaps the second most worrisome color for little girls dresses, followed by metallic colors that are bright or dark.
Our advice to parents purchasing special event girls dresses is to compensate for dark, dramatic colors and mature accents by selecting the dress in a traditional silhouette such as princess. If very mature accents such as marabou feathers are along the hemline of her favorite girls dress selection, be sure the hemline is at tea length. Marabou feathers on a floor length gown is too “Marilyn Monroe” and on a mini skirt is just plain tacky. By selecting a traditional tea length dress in a princess cut, you can safely enjoy some fun, although mature, accents and embellishments. One year we carried a very expensive line of girls dresses from a California designer. The dresses were all silk with both miniature pearl and marabou feather trim at the hemlines. That sounds about as inappropriate as dressing a child in adult lingerie. However, these girls dresses were extremely sweet; the silk was white with a traditional slate blue toile print. The cut of the dress was simple princess and it came with a bucket style floppy hat to match. We sold out of these girls dresses that winter, which was surprising given the very large retail price for the set.
The last piece of advice from our spectacular buyer, who has worked in the most famous of retail giants, is this: “What would your mother say about that girls dress, or what would your grandmother say?”
By: Patricia Pirkis