Children's fashion: 'From calf to cash cow'

In January Firenze is showing, breathing and living fashion. 

The first shot of a month full of fashion is given whith Pitti Uomo, the famous men's wear fair, at the beginning of the new year; followed by Pitti Bimbo, fashion for the smallest of us, human kind; then Vintage Selection, a vintage fair for those who are looking to dive back into history and Pitti Filati, a well known yarn fair, as the perfect ending to the most fashionable month of Firenze's Winter.

All spotlights are directed on the smallest ones amongst us when Pitti Bimbo comes around. The Florentine children's wear fair has grown to be one of the most well know and appreciated in its kind and attracts companies and buyers from all over the world twice a year, once in January and again in June.

The smallest side of fashion - leterally speaking then - has fastly become big business. Children are more and more aware of what they want to look like, what they want to wear and what is 'fashionable' these days. While our generation was still dressing up Barbies, the millenium babies play dress up themselves and fashion has spotted a new booming business: children with a sense of style, mommies with catwalk aspirations and daddies willing to spend that dough... A new cash cow is born!

I myself was able to see first hand how fashion's calf is growing into a big fat cow while I had the opportunity to work at some of the children's fashion shows during Pitti. 

I was a dresser for the smallest mannequins in fashion, but however small they might be, they left quite an impression on me...
Amazing how professional little children can be. From two to ten year olds, little girls and boys all of them loving the spotlight, marching to the music, showing of the stylist's newest creations in a perfect mannequin way and loving the attention. Litlle angels on the catwalk, but if they really are that angelic?!

As elegantly as they walked down that catwalk, as naughty some of them came off it. Some were just the cutest little devils dressed in dolly dots or little vagabonds, but others appeared to be very conscious and self-assured for their age. It occured to me that children's fashion can make a child grow up very quickly. I saw the little 9-year old girls running around the backstage room like they owned the place, watching their own reflection in the mirror with every chance they had, swirling their long hair around and criticizing their little 'friends'. 

Wheter or not modelling is the right thing to do for a child, I'll leave that up to the parents, but working at some of those fashion shows I've seen that children's wear is not all as innocent as it seems. "Business is business" they say and I'd definitely agree on that one when it comes to this calf growing into the fat cash making cow it is becoming...