Tweens, Fashion and Celebrity

On Saturday, in Los Angeles, the 25th annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards 2012 took place.  The awards show is aimed at the viewers of Nickelodeon, which is primarily tweens, with their favourite stars of film, television and music walking down the orange carpet.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, tweens are generally aged anywhere between 6 and 12.  They are essentially any child who is in a hurry to grow up, in other words, they are teenagers before their time.

Some of their favourite film stars including Emma Stone, Kristen Stewart and Selena Gomez made an appearance on the orange carpet at the awards show.  Tween girls aspire to look and dress like their favourite stars and the marketing industry seeks to profit from this.

Emma Stone in Antonio Berardi 

Kristen Stewart in Stella McCartney

Selena Gomez in Dolce and Gabbana

In the 21st century, the marketing industry began to target tweens, as they have money to spend more so than any other generation did at their age (Lindstrom 2004 p.1), they influence their parents when making purchasing decisions (Lindstrom 2004 p.2) and to access customers early on in their lives in the hope that if they catch them young they can hold onto them.

The marketing industry encourages tweens to grow up quickly (the industry uses the acronym KAGOY (kids are getting older younger)) with the use of a strategy called "age up" (Castleberry and Merrier 2008) which involves selling fashion items which appear to be aimed at teenagers when in fact it is for tweens who want to appear 'cool'.  This, marketers know has and will continue to make them a considerable amount of money.  However, it has led to controversial clothing, such as padded bras and swimwear being sold in Primark, Abercrombie Kids and Asda amongst others, which parents argue are not age appropriate and has seen the launch of the Let Girls be Girls Campaign. 

There has also been much controversy about the use of child models in the fashion industry including 10 year old, Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau in French Vogue and the message this sends to tween girls.

Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau, French Vogue, December 2010

On the one hand, it could be argued that fashion brands, magazines and marketing executives are to blame for the premature sexualisation of tween girls.  On the other hand, the blame could be placed on the celebrities, who tweens idolise, for being inappropriate role models.