{"id":2417,"date":"2015-12-03T22:21:51","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T22:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/?p=2417"},"modified":"2021-02-08T15:05:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T20:05:38","slug":"first-fancy-class-habitus-and-kids-clothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/2015\/12\/03\/first-fancy-class-habitus-and-kids-clothing\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cFirst Fancy\u201d: Class, Habitus, and Kids\u2019 Clothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cResort Ready Style,\u201d the subject line reads. Another day another email from the retailer Janie and Jack<\/a>, a\u00a0manufacturer of high-end baby and children\u2019s clothing. \u201cExclusive Debut: Be first to shop coastal looks just right for a sunny escape.\u201d A photo of a small white boy, maybe 4-years old, accompanies this caption. He wears red khaki shorts, a blue shawl neck sweater, lace-up shoes sans socks, and what looks to be a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses. He\u2019s cute, with his blonde hair swept to one side, a toothy grin, and leaning casually against the side of a wooden sailboat.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s December, so I\u2019m not sure who is getting away with a sockless coastal vacation in the Northeast. But what I find so interesting about Janie and Jack\u2014and other children\u2019s retailers like it\u2014is its codification of \u201ctaste,\u201d association with leisure, and representation of children as small adults. By the time we are adults, we usually\u00a0understand\u00a0our taste as something that reflects our personal preferences, our supposed and somehow inborn orientation to style. Examining the marketing and sale\u00a0of children\u2019s clothing, however, makes it clear that we are acculturated into style; children, after all, are not purchasing their own Fair Isle sweater pants.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
Image Source: www.janieandjack.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pierre Bourdieu was a French Sociologist who, in his book on Distinction<\/a>, developed the concept habitus <\/em>to describe the social origins of taste. It\u2019s a way to see inequalities in our relationships to cultural artifacts and activities and on our bodies. For example, while the ability to purchase a $119 wool suit blazer in size 3-6 months requires economic privilege, easily imagining and desiring to see one\u2019s baby in it also reflects a long held class location and taken-for-granted world of pleasure and pomp. Importantly, Bourdieu notes, taste leads to distinction, by which we rank people according to \u201chighbrow\u201d vs. \u201clowbrow\u201d or \u201cclassy\u201d vs. \u201ctrashy.\u201d Social hierarchies, then, are reflected in and essentialized through the\u00a0development of taste over our\u00a0lifetimes.<\/p>\n

\""First<\/a>
“First Fancy.” Image Source: www.janieandjack.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Faux<\/a>
Faux Fur Collar Cape: $89. Image Source: www.janieandjack.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, these kid models are beautiful. And I receive daily emails from Janie and Jack because I popped for a $72 sweater and beret for my daughter before she was born (which we forgot to put her in before she was too big for them!). I figured she could wear the outfit to meet her Great Uncle, who is an antique dealer and interior designer. I almost went for the orange dress with a Herm\u00e8s print, instead. My ability to recognize Herm\u00e8s and to buy the sweater and beret say something about my introduction to high-end fashions and financial means. But the feeling that my daughter would better reflect her Uncle\u2019s style in a beret says something about my lack of membership to and attempt to pass in a particularly classed group that demonstrates a fastidious pedigree.<\/p>\n

\"Polo<\/a>
Polo Sweater: $52. Image Source: www.janieandjack.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is more to say here about the social significance of the children\u2019s clothing market, especially in regards to race and gender, as well as to conceptions of children as small adults or people-in-progress. As we peer through shop windows, relate to fashion models and mannequins, and to others who do and do not share our tastes, Bourdieu\u2019s lesson about ingrained orientations to representations of class are as relevant as ever.<\/p>\n

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For more on\u00a0style, class, and inequalities, see Barber’s article on The Well-Coiffed Man: Class, Race, and Heterosexual Masculinity in the Hair Salon<\/a>\u00a0and chapter on “Styled Masculinity: Men’s Consumption of Salon Hair Care and the Construction of Difference” in\u00a0Exploring Masculinities<\/a>, edited by C.J. Pascoe and Tristan Bridges.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cResort Ready Style,\u201d the subject line reads. Another day another email from the retailer Janie and Jack, a\u00a0manufacturer of high-end baby and children\u2019s clothing. \u201cExclusive Debut: Be first to shop coastal looks just right for a sunny escape.\u201d A photo of a small white boy, maybe 4-years old, accompanies this caption. He wears red khaki […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2417"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3365,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417\/revisions\/3365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}