Half-shirts, mini-skirts, and booty shorts are fashions you'd
expect to find on gyrating dancers in sexy music videos - grown women. But these
days you'll also see them on the under-13 set.
Forget coveralls and
knee-length smocks. Girls as young as 5 years old are trading in their button-down
shirts and corduroy pants for the hipster jeans and micro-minis they see on their
fashion role models.
From Barbie to Britney
Some
parents say sexy young stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera have made
back-to-school shopping a battle.
Now "baby Britneys" and "teeny
Christeenies" are pestering their parents to have a wardrobe that's beyond
their years.
"When I take them shopping they pick out things that
show too much and aren't appropriate for school at all," said Robyn Cohen,
mother of a pre-teen.
But Roberta Caploe, editor of the teen magazine Tiger
Beat, says these performers and teen magazines are just giving kids what they
want.
"I don't think it's about trying to look older, I just think
they are just trying to dress like stars they think are fantastic," Capole
said.
Racks of stores like Target, and Wet Seal are bursting with sexy
choices, like tight "Playboy" T-shirts and pink fake leather pants.
They are giving them what they want.
Five-year-old Lotte Pickard loves her
pink fishnet stockings her strappy sandals, which she says, are sexy. "I
like to look sexy," the little girl explains.
Sexy Equals Pretty
The
tight, short clothes are cute and they have no place the classroom, says elementary
school teacher Dana Zeman.
"In my class, I'd like to set a protocol
because I think students are too young to set it for themselves," Zeman said.
Most schools do have dress codes that prohibit midriff baring shirts and
short skirts and disciplinarians say they will enforce the rules.
Caption Stores are selling leopard skin skirts and tube tops in pre-teen sizes
and young girls are raiding the racks.
(Agencies)