What My Daughter Wore

February 10, 2013 3:15 PM

Documenting the sartorial choices of my ten year old daughter, her brothers, and their friends.
posted by neroli (36 comments total)

These are nice. This one reminds me of Tavi Gevinson.
posted by sweetkid at 3:23 PM on February 10, 2013

These 10-year-olds are way, way more fashionable than any of the 10-year-olds I see walking around.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:23 PM on February 10, 2013 [7 favorites]

"Sixties Vintage and a Puppy"
Um, I'm pretty sure no one wears a puppy.

Well, there was the once.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 3:25 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's a lot of clothes.
posted by alex_skazat at 3:29 PM on February 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

Children should not wear Al Pacino T-shirts. Just say no!
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:50 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I kinda like her son's band.
posted by orme at 3:53 PM on February 10, 2013

Why do they look so miserable?
posted by a humble nudibranch at 4:33 PM on February 10, 2013

It's fashion.
posted by sweetkid at 4:36 PM on February 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

Because their mother dresses them funny.
posted by darksasami at 4:36 PM on February 10, 2013 [10 favorites]

They remind me of a cross between Final Fantasy concept art and Wes Anderson production notes.
posted by codacorolla at 4:47 PM on February 10, 2013 [7 favorites]

A different outfit every single day?
posted by Fnarf at 4:47 PM on February 10, 2013

Your ten-year-old is going to grow up to be insufferable.
posted by dortmunder at 4:51 PM on February 10, 2013 [12 favorites]

What I Made My Daughter Wear So That She Could Be Famous Like That Other PreTeen Fashion Chick On The Internet.
posted by unSane at 4:55 PM on February 10, 2013 [5 favorites]

These remind me of the stuff me and my other thrift-store-loving friends wore as teenagers.

These days you'd probably say I'm more put-together and on-trend than I was back then, but I certainly have a lot less fun with my clothing. I remember one yearbook photo with a bright yellow shirt, florescent teal cardigan, and huge pink fake pearl necklace. I had a pair of knockoff Chucks covered with cartoon dogs that I wore to pieces. And I wore my grandmother's 60s red wool suitjacket as a regular jacket, over graphic tees.

A highlight: one Halloween I came to school dressed as a gypsy- two different-length flowing skirts, a sheer blouse covered in gold decorations, piles of jewelry, a scarf on my head. But my everyday clothing was so weird that NO ONE NOTICED I WAS IN COSTUME.

Now that I think of it, hipsters are probably just people like me who never decided to tone it down post-high school.

Moral of the story, this blog rings totally true to me and I'm adding it to my RSS reader as a reminder of days gone by.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:33 PM on February 10, 2013 [10 favorites]

Teenagers, yes, 10 yrs olds, no. This is all way too calculated.

The drawings are nice though.
posted by unSane at 5:41 PM on February 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

Ten is about when I remember getting into fashion. I remember I wore a shirt with flamingoes on it over a turquoise turtleneck with peach pants to my tenth birthday party and thought that was the BEST. Also was just getting into Babysitters Club books and they talked about clothes a lot there.
posted by sweetkid at 5:44 PM on February 10, 2013

DOES NO ONE EVER SMILE ANY MORE?

It's all duckface and sadness.

Smile, you insane little twerps. You're not starring in a Wes Anderson movie.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:47 PM on February 10, 2013 [9 favorites]

I loved putting together crazy/creative outfits as a 10-year-old, and even earlier. Nice drawings, and not that it really matters, but yes, I think these can easily be real.
posted by three_red_balloons at 5:48 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Does no one here remember what it was like to be 10? I remember myself as being more than capable of putting together an outfit or two.
posted by peacheater at 6:08 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Does no one here remember what it was like to be 10?

No, not no one, several of us have been posting about exactly this.
posted by sweetkid at 6:14 PM on February 10, 2013

I particularly like the ones of the siblings, like this one: http://whatmydaughterwore.blogspot.com/2012/03/brother-and-sister-in-back-seat.html
posted by odayoday at 6:14 PM on February 10, 2013

showbiz_liz, I had similar "don't you see I'm in costume?!" moments on Halloween in high school. One year I wore all the patterns I could muster all over me - floral tights, madras shorts, striped shirt, paisley over that - and went as "the scariest thing the girls in my school could imagine." Except that I found I liked that combo so much I wore it all the time. Next year I went as the scariest thing I could imagine for Halloween -- a "prep."
posted by gusandrews at 6:54 PM on February 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

These sorts of things just astound me sometimes, not only at the length to which some people will go to get internet attention about their parenting, but the extent to which so many parents these days are just completely up their kids' asses all the time. I had plenty of quality time with my parents when I was ten years old, and I can't possibly imagine having them pay so much attention to my prepubescent sartorial choices that they would sketch what I wore every day -- never mind putting it on the internet. Okay, the internet didn't exist in the 70s so that was an easy one. Still...
posted by slkinsey at 7:07 PM on February 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

Or maybe it's just a cute way for a mom to practice her drawing skills- you can totally see that she gets better at drawing from the beginning to the end of the blog- using an interesting and varied subject that is constantly available to her, and make some family keepsake art at the same time?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:47 PM on February 10, 2013 [9 favorites]

Wow, these are beautiful. I work in a school, and one thing I look forward to every day is seeing what some children choose to wear. They're all beautiful, and at that age it's brave to want to stand out. It's all so interesting, seeing their outward expression. As an adult, I know that fashion takes energy, so I admire every effort.

It may or may not have anything to do with their parents. But it is often for real, for those who doubt. My own daughter, at almost 9, has great fun with clothes. We go to clothing swaps; she loves hand-me-downs; and we cut through a thrift store to get home from school a few times a week and some things just jump out at her. If I were talented enough to draw her, I would - but most often, I'll just snap a picture of her choices on the way to school, because she almost never puts the same outfit together twice. And even if I love some combination of things, I may never see it again. For example, the beret she loved so much after seeing Moonrise Kingdom (speaking of Wes Anderson) was something she was told looked stupid, and so it doesn't get worn to school any more. That's why she's smiling in some pictures - her spirit hasn't been harshed on yet that day. And if she's in a mood to burn bridges, she'll dress that way too, as you can see. When she was going through a phase where a kid was punching and swearing at her nearly every day, she wore clothes that made her feel tough.

Thanks so much for this post - I think it's a thing of beauty and a loving gesture - and something to be treasured. I'll share it with my kid in the morning.
posted by peagood at 8:10 PM on February 10, 2013 [13 favorites]

Creepy.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:50 PM on February 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

The sketches are beautifully done, technically, but there's something so staged and artificial about it. It's like... fifty-seven varieties of creepy, artistically blended into a creepy sauce. I think it's best to address my feelings in a list:

--That kid looks really morose for a ten year old. I paint ten year olds for a living and my agent would be bitching at me if I made ten year olds look this depressed and this old.
--Why does this kid have so many different outfits?
--Does this mean this kid is really spoiled?
--Oh God yes artistically frustrated Gen X mom constantly drawing her special snowflake day in day out I CAN JUST PICTURE IT
--Now I'm imagining this kid in ten years, posing with duckface everywhere
--Back to that staged artificiality again
--Well maybe it's not as bad as I'm imagining it
--No it's probably worse...
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 11:16 PM on February 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

"Vintage" seems to cover a lot.

The furry hat is clearly a bag upside down.

I sympathise with the difficulty in differentiating between a drawing of a head and a drawing of a picture of a head. It looks a bit as if 'Al Pacino' has in fact materialised in the girl's transparent empty body cavity. She looks about as happy as you would expect in those circumstances, too.
posted by Segundus at 1:10 AM on February 11, 2013

Nice. The girl doesn't particularly look 10 to me, but that could just be the sketches.
posted by OmieWise at 5:29 AM on February 11, 2013

Nice. The girl doesn't particularly look 10 to me, but that could just be the sketches.

After going through the archives, I suspect that the blog was headed 'my ten year old daughter' when it was originally made two years ago, and then never got changed. So that would make her 12 or 13 now, which seems to fit better.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:34 AM on February 11, 2013

Oh man I actually had exactly this New Kids on the Block sweater when I was 8 years old (19 years ago!). I have to admit that I had no clue who they were and just wore it because I liked the colors.
posted by peacheater at 7:44 AM on February 11, 2013

Peagood, I like your story. My youngest son is a Begindergartner in a school that goes up to 4th grade, so, 9-ish, and one of the girls who is a safety has the most dazzling fashion sense. Less thirft-shop-y than "my parents let me spend a lot of money on clothes" but she is so put together. Clearly she has a talent for it. I enjoy seeing it, just like I enjoy seeing kids express other talents and interests.

I sometimes have the cynical reaction to blogs like this, but I am way into my own kids because they are awesome and fascinating. My youngest has fans on Facebook, and I document my kids' creations a lot. I like this sketching mom. She seems like she's having fun and her kids are cool.
posted by not that girl at 9:21 AM on February 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

Whether 10 or 12, there is no sign whatsoever of these kids having fun -- just constantly posing and showing off how cool they are, like models in Vanity Fair. This made me incredibly sad, as a parent of 13 and 16 year old girls. Has goofy been killed?
posted by msalt at 7:01 AM on February 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Wow - it's even more impressive looking at this as a body of work on Instagram.

I am really surprised at how divided the posts are when it comes to looking at a talented person's work and beautiful, creative children.

You know, these are just moments. This is not all the time. I doubt that the kids constantly posed looking miserable for these sketches. It appears that the artist sketches, then posts and that's about it. I've been enjoying looking through this for some time now, wanted to learn more and couldn't find much.

It appears to me the kids likely just stood still for a moment, or were captured in a photo, possibly reluctantly, in one moment in the course of any day. Their investment in them is possibly minimal. I'm imagining that it was a quick snap, possibly with some eye-rolling (and often, as I get, either a refusal to smile or a big cheesy fake grin) (and a "sheesh" of indulgence) and then the kids were off, being themselves doing their own things. And then at some point the artist sat down with a nice cup of tea and sketched it out from the picture, uploaded it to share with people that like and care about them, or simply as an extension of the drawing exercise for this project, and then went on about their day. I'm having charitable thoughts in my head about this, because I obviously admire it. I don't see it as devotion or obsession with their project, but admiration of these little humans, and dedication to a theme. At least, that's what I'm projecting.

They're not millions of outfits - they're many different kids, looking like some are wearing hand me downs and sharesies and various combinations from a variety of sources - and if they're anything like my own kid, the adult's closets are hopefully larger and more interesting extensions of their own. Just a couple of months ago, my daughter discovered that her grandfather wears very different socks than she does. His preferred socks are nothing like any of us wear, and she has requested that the next time she is due for new socks, that we look for some bulky, thick, ribbed men's crew socks for her (and she asked him if she could keep the pair she borrowed because her own socks got wet.) That's how it happens. And, kids grow out of clothing so quickly too, that adults often stockpile bigger sizes and retain smaller items as they're found to accommodate.

Lots of these pictures have the children with smiles in the corners of their mouths. Lots were obviously candid. Perhaps the kids aren't naturally smiley people, but when they do, it's brilliant and impossible to capture. Maybe they have issues with their smiles. I'm going to think that maybe, just like when I was a kid and even now, it's like when I'm walking along thinking my own thoughts and some stranger on the sidewalk feels they need to tell me "Smile! It's not so bad!" My favourite pictures of my own child are when she's absorbed by something, rather than hamming it up.

Have too many people been conditioned by smizing or worse - portrait studio photography of smiley, shiny, traditionally dressed children or is it just that the artist's choices don't sit well with people who are projecting? This is a person with a vision. I don't see at as any different than, say, Mark Ryden's unsmiling but beautiful subjects.

Should people not look upon their interesting children fondly, and be fascinated by them? Sharing is just that - sharing - and not everyone is expected to embrace them. Just today, a friend sent these images that she came across of our daughters from last spring, each dressed in a typical outfit. In neither are they obviously smiling or goofy (though I am 1000% certain they were at many points during that day) but I think they're more beautiful for it and I only appreciate glimpsing these moments in their day rather than wishing they were smiling for the camera. And I'm just showing this as another example that kids wear weird clothes sometimes and are captured in moments - nobody has to love it, but nobody has to ding it either. And I'm going to be really sad when my daughter finds out in the spring that she's grown out of that orange jacket she wore so much, and I wonder what she'll fall in love with to replace it.
posted by peagood at 9:47 AM on February 12, 2013 [2 favorites]

peagood, your daughter is adorable and has a good eye for putting together outfits. I'm quite jealous!
posted by deborah at 12:14 PM on February 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

These are not candid moments -- it's kids imitating jaded fashion models at the direction of their mother. Look at any New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ, etc -- its the precise jaded, ultra-urbane, high fashion look. That's what's sad.
posted by msalt at 9:12 AM on February 16, 2013