From ideation to inclusion: investigation in contemporary childrenswear in the Global North

Focusing on the importance of reshaping their position in society and valuing their voice, the debate on children’s education barely ignores the importance of the daily interactions between children and their clothing. Echoing the lack of interest in children’s clothing in Childhood Studies, this area of research remains marginal in both Fashion History and Fashion Design, despite the importance of this market in contemporary society. Based on an original anthropological methodology aimed at interpreting the material culture to inform the society, this investigation in the past and present of children’s fashion, highlights the role of clothing in the socialisation of children. This paper identifies the opportunities, methods and potential limitation for the fashion industry to undertake a renewed approach of a more inclusive and responsible childrenswear, influencing children’s socialisation and emphasizing the specificities of the creative process. Moving away from the conception of children’s fashion as a miniaturisation of adult’s dress code, and tiying the changes in scholarship with the needed evolution of the apparel, this research establishes how childrenswear can reinvent itself thanks to a new model where children are included as users as well as co-creators of the story that they tell