Abstract
‘My God I’m wearing Tesco!’, exclaims 10-year-old Georgia, in exaggerated horror, as she realises that she has admitted to wearing a piece of clothing from a supermarket chain, in a focus group with friends. Her comments imply young girls’ awareness of the branding of fashion and its commercial source. Edwards (Living dolls? The role of clothing and fashion in ‘sexualisation’. Sexualities, Vol. 23 (5–6), 702–716, 2020), examining children’s clothing, addresses continuing popular concern in the UK about fashion being part of both the sexualising and commercialising of childhood, suggesting that there is little research about children’s relationship with dress. This chapter focusses on what commercialisation might involve and what part it may play in girls’ understanding of fashion, particularly examining notions of consumerism and economic activity in relation to how girls talk about their consumption of clothing.
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Notes
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All names of people and places are pseudonyms to maintain anonymity
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Though the gap between the rich and the poor is growing (ONS 2008b).
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Blanchard, J. (2022). ‘My God I’m Wearing Tesco!’: Fashion, Pre-Teen Femininity and the Commercialisation of Childhood. In: Powell, P., Shankar Nayak, B. (eds) Creative Business Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10928-7_6
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