What the Tween Fashion Industry Won't Tell You!

Humor and irony. Mom takes her foreign exchange student shopping at the local "tween" clothiers only to learn what the girls of the day are actually wearing, while learning tween marketing technique.

A few years ago, we hosted an exchange student from Ecuador.  Although she attended high school for a mere 9 months, I fear we sent her back with less of the hard earned education she came with, due to her exposure to our public school system.  Too soon, she returned home with a newly acquired mastery of the English Language (California edition) and some facts about US History and Government that I am certain she forgot the moment she boarded the plane.

We managed to stay in touch, and were very happy when she decided to come for a visit last month.  

A day after her arrival, our now 21 year old daughter from another family asked if I would take her clothes shopping.

I am the full time owner of a 12 year old boy who is fully steeped in American culture.  Shopping for clothes with him is a bit like trying to give a cat a bath.  Even though it has to be done, nobody really wants to do it.  It's really really messy, you know there is going to be a lot of yowling, and eventually, someone gets scratched.  I do NOT like clothes shopping with my boy.  Now when the daughter I claim when she is in the US asked me to take her shopping, I think I may have swooned. 

I gladly took her to the store where, in their quest to be individual and unique, the entire population of those between 12 and 20 buy their clothes.  I was fairly certain we would find something for her there. 

Nena's nationality is Ecuadorian, but her heritage is Incan.  She is teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, very pretty with loads of long brown hair, big doe-brown eyes and she wears a US size 2.  (She also wears an Ecuadorian size 2, but because they speak Spanish in Ecuador it is pronounced 2.)

We found the young ladies section where they carried clothes for girls in three sizes:  Size 0, Size 2 and Size "OMG I'M SO FAT! 4".  Our Nena is from a conservative culture, and we were a bit hard pressed to find something appropriate.  Eventually, however she plucked up three or four cute little dresses in size 2 (American).  As she headed to the fitting room,  I meandered through the girls section wondering what it was that that the girls were into these days.  My son, at 12 is highly secretive about the girls in his peer group.

Near the front I found a display of blouses sized 0 to OMGIF! 4.  I wondered if these blouses were from the "Emperor's New Clothing" collection because they appeared to be made of some type of fabric that wasn't.  They were sheer, transparent, clear AND see-through at the same time.  "These were tops for tweens?"  I thought.  Next to these blouses I found teeny-tiny little bands of elastic fabric which faintly resembled what, in my day were called tube tops.   I can only conclude that there was a large shortage of tube top fabrics because these things were the width of an average Superman Bandaid.  The sales girl called these things "bralettes".   Apparently you had to wear something under these invisible blouses for fear you would look cheap and easy!

I was floored!  Is THIS what my son's female classmates are wearing to school?  It would explain a lot of things about his grades lately, but I've seen the dress code.  I had to sign it.  Surely these were one of those "loss leader" items that retailers use to draw in customers. 

Continuing through the aisles, I found what I thought were larger "bralettes".  These seemed much more appropriate for girls aged 12-20.  Right next to these larger braletts, I found slighlty shorter versions the same.  I was very confused.  I grabbed the arm of a nearby mother who was making  wide berth around this section with her 9 year old daughter in tow.  "Do you think that maybe these tube top things are skirts?  And if they are, what are the smaller ones for?"  I asked.  She replied that she wasn't certain, but she had told her daughter they were headbands, and she couldn't have one. 

I spied a sales girl hanging up some dresses made of tissue paper somewhere between the crocheted halter tops of exceptionally large loop and the micro-mini shortie-shorts made from some type of sea foam.  I was reminded of those teeny-tiny outfits I used to stuff my Anatomically Impossible Barbie Dolls into when I was 6.  I asked the sales girl in a hushed whisper to please explain the function of the fabric stretchy bands.  She started to explain in a non-quiet salesgirl voice until I hushed her and reminded her that headband girl was nearby.  "These,"  she whispered pointedly, "are skirts."  (The duh! was implied.)  "All of them?" I asked incredulously? "Even these shorter ones?"

"Well yeah!"  was her response.   "These are for big girls - size 0 to OMGIF! 4.  And these,"  she said, motioning to other set of bands, "are for little girls!" 

I was confused.  "For little girls... for what?"  I queried. 

"For like wearing" was her impatient reply.  I looked at her wide eyed.  My confusion obvious. 

"For them to wear... as in... skirts?"  I finally managed to ask.  All I remember after that was her nod.  There was a loud whooshing sound, and then suddenly everything became crystal clear! 

THIS is what the fashion industry is telling our tween girls they should be wearing!  In public!    My next realization was that perhaps the current California education crisis was due to a bit more than massive budget cuts, antiquated union systems and 90% salary and benefit budget line items.

Oh my poor, poor son.  He is a left brain thinker, but a right brain organizer.  He has recently had such a difficult time managing all of the various papers, projects and directives given to him from five different teachers as a new middle schooler.  He has been working so hard on organization and study habits and was making slow inroads.  I begin to wonder if it were remotely possible that part of his disorganization is not at all related to his brain.

Poor little boys.  Between hormones, pimples, armpit hair and the confusion of middle school, they have a hard time.  Throw in a girl sashaying by in an outfit pulled from the closet of her Barbie Beach House, and you begin to see that they simply don't stand a chance!

But then again, I think of the poor younger  pre-tween girls.  I wonder what they are dressing Barbie in these days.  For it now seems obvious that Barbie's couteres have been courting more lucrative markets.  After all, these kids DO have a lot of buying power - even during a recession.  And surely it is much easier to charge $50 for an article of clothing that is for an actual human bocy.  It is highly doubtful that headband girl's mom would shell out $50 for a micro-mini skirt for Barbie.  It seems easy enough to change the packaging.  Instead of plastic wrapped bubble gum themed hang cards they just put those items on hangers to then sell to tween clothing stores.  Ohhh the evil genius that is the tween clothing industry.

It was at that point that my 21 year old Ecuadorian beauty stepped out of the dressing room with 3 very appropriate dresses in hand.  I was suddenly very very happy.  I was happy because my daughter was raised by another family, and in anther country entirely.  Were that not the case. I'm fairly certain I would have taken her to buy her back-to-school wardrobe at the local sporting goods store, where I'm fairly certain that a headband is a headband, and a turtle neck is a turtle neck.  But then if she were raised in my culture, it may very well have turned out to be just another cat bath.

Author's Note

Please be honest in your assessment. I write for self-fulfillment, but have been "nudged" into publishing.

Reviews

[roarke]

Good satirical concepts here. You started out with introducing Nena and then took off in the piece about the clothing industry, I might suggest keeping a dialogue running between the two of you throughout the piece. There's some repetition here, repetition works as a running sight gag in tv and films, but in writing it should be used to develop otherwise it becomes redundant and slows the pace. Condense and streamline the middle of the piece.
The part about your son is GREAT stuff, though sounds like it could be part of a totally different piece, although you might want to pepper those ideas here and there, as an added comic distraction, builds layers on the whole "shopping experience."
You wrapped up the piece very nicely, tying in all the elements you presented and gave it a nice soft punchline. Just some ideas, lots of good material here. Don't hesitate to try different drafts, the concepts and writing voice here are worth it.

[Zeek4]

I enjoyed your story and sympathized with your dilemma having raised a daughter myself. Fortunately, I managed to keep up such a high paced barrage of negative comments when shopping with wife and daughter that I was soon disallowed from attending the ritual. However, being a teacher I had many young ladies that came to school dressed as want-to-be prostitutes that I had to send to the office for a school T-shirt to cover miscellaneous body parts. We also had an exchange student from France age 17 going on 30. She was so put off by the high school scene that her best friend in the US became my wife. They are still close. She now has two girls, one just finishing up her residence as a doctor. As usual, your story is filled with wit and charm and thoroughly enjoyable to read. I sympathize with your middle school boy. There is a lot of distractions out there.

[EMF]

A wonderfully funny work. I have one girl and two boys. The atmosphere is still the same clothes shopping with them, even when they are in their twenties. I try to hide, or nip out for a smoke. Healthier than clothes shopping with them.
I have to agree with 90% of what young Roarke says, but I would run the contrast and similarities between shopping for him and her in different paragraphs. Bounce one from the other. It may work, it may not. Possibly worth a thought.
It also might be worth talking a sentance or two more about Nena, just to give your average scan reader a bit more backstory, which so many of them love. For me it's fine, but I know what some are like.

Oh and your Authors Note... Damn right you should publish. You're good enough to ignore everything I say...apart from this bit. Publish Luv.

[FigureEight]

...Wow... interesting concept you had here! Reading this was quite enjoyable for me, if you don't mind my saying so. Well done.

[Chris]

A lot of views and nary a thought... very unfair. Satire and reality...not Comedian humor... but the heart-full kind. Where you can smile and just nod in understanding as you meander through.