Introduction
In the recent years, any discussion about the clothing fashion style of children mainly centers on adultification of children’s clothing. The adult clothing brand recently tends to compete and make clothes for children, and this has resulted into cartoons becoming an integral part of clothes for children. Actually, the various children’s clothing brands has become multi-choice, multi-styled and more diversified. They are becoming more similar to adult clothing. The adultification of children’s clothing can be term as the ways in which the attire for children was viewed by parents and the industry progressively to duplicate the clothing designs of the adults in some aspects together with the furtherance of some more characteristically child only clothing. Particular concern focuses on the relation of this with the adultification of the clothing for the girls to integrate excessively adult styles, especially those that tend to expose parts of the body. The adultification of children is becoming normalized at even a very tender age. Children start to experience pressure at school in improper clothing because none of them wants to be seen different. This paper discusses how adultification of child's wear in China has affected kids, designers, and market. It will also discuss how to make my brand survive in the Chinese market.
Background
The clothes put on by young children and infants before the early 20th century had a common feature. The clothing designed for young kids at that time lacked the sex distinctions. This aspect of children's clothing originated from the sixteenth century when the European men and older boys started to put on doubles paired breeches. Before this time, males and females of all ages used to wear some gown, robe or tunic. Both male and women become much more distinct when the male started putting on bifurcated garments. Only men used breeches and older boys whereas the rest society members continued to put on skirted garments.
The advancement of fresh theories in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries about kids hugely affected the clothing for children. For centuries, the swaddling-immobilizing newborn babies with linen wrapping over the diapers and shirts have been in existence. The use of swaddling reduced gradually due to some medical reasons. With the declined use of swaddling, infants were put on gowns from birth to close to five months of age. The clothes used by older children became less constricting in late 19th century compared to the modern ones.
The clothing for babies continued trends in place in the nineteenth century, in which layettes were introduced. The trousers for boys come in the late 1890s as it became more popular and significant than breaching. At the same time, little girl’s dresses become to emerge. In the 20th century, the formerly male-only garments became more and more accepted kind of attire for girls and women. In the present day, girls began to put on pants dresses in almost all social situations. Most of those pant styles as blue jeans were sexually unisex in design and cut. Teenagers in the twentieth century we restricted in term of how they expressed their autonomy through appearance. The parents dictated the adolescents fashion in the 20th century.
Market view and the effects of adultification
The market for children's clothing in China has a promising future due to several factors in play. The country has been witnessing a steady growth of the economy, and the parents are becoming more demanding on the attire they want to buy for their children. Clothing just like food is an important primary commodity that is mostly bought by parents in China. The parents in China always look for beautiful and fashionable designs when they purchase attires for their kids. Many global brands have set up stores for children clothing in the country also.
Regarding demand, there is an increase in demand for children's clothes in the country. The number of children clothing brands in China has risen today than it was in the past decade. An increasing number of big firms and foreign clothing brands in China have been experienced due to the growth of the country economy and the introduction of the two-child policy. In 2014, the total retail sales for children’s apparels was Rmb 130.3 billion in China, and this is anticipated to augment by ten percent on a yearly basis between 2014-2018. The rate is much higher than that of the world average that is 6.4%. In overall, the demand for children's apparels in China is clearly high.
Imitating is a common and an easy practice in the children and infant clothing. There also exist a high level of substitution between the quality and product. The level of market competition is becoming more and more intense, with some brands opting to trim down the price to attract both loyal clients and the prospective customers. The society is also adopting a culture of becoming more affluent and parents spending mentality steadily change from planned buying to impulse kind of buying. The parents buy regardless of the season when there are offers of discount. The idea of purchasing clothing and keeping them for the children until they are grown enough for them to wear or when the season is right is long gone. The children tend to have a say today since they would sometimes outgrow their parent buying is before they even have the chance to put on them.
The children's wear in China has progressively experienced the adultification trend as from 2010 regarding exterior design. This was initially caused by high-end luxury brands such as Burberry and Armani. What is more, the key manufacturers such as Balabala, Adidas, and Nike came up with a huge number of outdoor advertisements in areas such Shangai and Beijing to try and increase the awareness of the consumer and purchasing demand for grown up design. These big players tried to display the child models clothing with some impressions that can only be associated with adult apparels like stretching T-shirt, tight jeans and lace decorations. Parents who are more fashion sensible and greatly affected by the western culture, show a lot of willingness to dress their kids in the grown-up style of clothing.
What the children wear in China is greatly disjointed given the fact that the local brands and non-branded products produced by the small shops were broadly welcomes in the country's low tier cities and rural areas because of their relatively low prices. The Balabala like the Semir's children’s' apparels continues to lead and account for more than 3 % of the retail value share. The other leading brands include the Dadida, Pepco, Annil and Boshiwa that take a 4% of the total market value. The children's apparels still show potential until 2017, due to the increase in the disposable income is anticipated to increase, and the young parents are becoming the mainstream consumer group of the children’s wear.
Impacts on Designers
For several decades, China's children clothing was still in its initial stages and few famous brands were known. Children’s clothing brands started to come up when the economy of the country started to do well. Due to the huge market, prospects for infants and children in the recent past year’s international companies and the leading brands started to venture into the children clothing business. The trend of adultification of kids' apparels reflects a response to the wider social phenomenon as well as the manifestation of social advancements. The introduction of adultification of children clothing in China has forced designers to make brands that suit the needs of the society. This shift in customers' needs has prompted designers to start and make a small wrapped chest, overalls, small shawl and small fur. These designers come up with wears that display the loveliness of children, which tend to attract the Chinese to put on adultification clothing.
The various designs and styles in the children's clothing designs reflect and communicate the popular market trends. Therefore, the concepts of the designers follow the expectation in the market. Thus, most of the designers in China today design the clothing for children on their intentions. Currently, the children's attires in China have become increasingly mature because the designers consider children mature. Doing so the designers what they perceive as the expectations of the children and parents when buying clothing.
The designers are now tapping into the parents and children expectations in the children’s wear which is to appear helpful. Parents pressurize the mini designers to be engaged in trendy children fashion. The chain pumpkin patch for children is designed with pint-sized spin. The colored skinny jeans, biker ballet flats, and quilted chain handbags comprise among the variety of tots and pre-teens.
Impacts on Kids
Individuality typifies the various brands of children's clothing. The concerns of the parents concerning the clothing for their children go way beyond safety and comfort as they grow up. The concerns of the parents' shifts to good taste and individuality with more and more focus on the design and style of the brands. The case is common with kids of three years and above. The parents become more concerned with want they children wear when they begin to be more active in outside activities and develop circles that are more social. At such age, parents tend to dress their children in a way that shows class and style. The parents often look for clothing that is different from other kids to attract attention and admiration and to boost confidence for their children. Parents in China purchase attire for their children that cultivate the good taste. The purchases made by these parents reflect the good taste of the parents that they consider to give them a sense of pride. Parents assert that the well-known brands are stylish and are associated with the character that would be instrumental in highlighting the individuality of their children.
The reason behind this thinking is that parents are buying stylish international brands because they attribute it to their social circles that are associated with high-income bracket. The children of the high-income level society also buy such brands for their children so that they could match. They should also buy the same from their children. Subsequently, such parents are motivated by a certain level of competitiveness also to purchase the high-end global clothing as a way of revealing class and wealth. The children of such parents do not have any brand awareness, but the parents buy the brands as proof that their children are getting the best.
Notably, because of the pressure off parents to show off their class and wealth and to match such parental demands, children’s wear producers have resorted to product differentiation. This product differentiation has designed stylish clothing with character, some of which coming up with grown-up appearances in their children’s clothing. For some occasion such as weddings banquets and school admission interviews, parents would recommend the formal, more mature wears for their children as a way of creating a good impression.
The children’s clothing in “grown up” designs may have same aspects of the adulthood wears in style. It does not necessarily take into consideration the needs of the little children. Some kid's wearing like winter jackets does not take into account the fact that shorter necks expose children to cold. In addition, some decoration and ornamentation in adult clothing do not fit for the kids’ wearing. The parents think that the most vital considerations for kids' wear are safety and comfort of the materials used.
The preferences of the children become a matter when they grow older. Children start to express their preferences at certain age especially the school going years, and they would always want to decide which clothes to wear. Parents tend to agree and pursue the desires of their children. At such age, most of the children tend to be attracted to printed designs or clothes that have cartoon drawings on them. Others favor apparels that have bright colors with prominent animals' prints. Therefore, the children’s preferences on their clothing tend to be associated with distinct prints.
Conclusion
Given that the children apparel adultification is driven by the increasing psychology of the children, it tends to ignore the distinctive nature of the children attire. Children are playful, and their clothing should take into consideration this important character in children. The current children's clothing trend will result in the market becoming less attractive, and the widespread adultification will lead to a more limited market of the kids wears. The current trends of the children's clothing in China are mainly characterized by imitating and lack of originality in coming up with designs that give the parents and children alternatives and options to choose from in the market. I need to capitalize on and encourage my clients to purchase children’s clothing that meets the real needs of children through my designers.
Bibliography
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