The girl clothes reference contains over 690 high-resolution images of a young girl in different clothing styles, from traditional kimono to pjs and daily outdoor clothing. It is an invaluable resource for daily sketching and can also be used by designers, illustrators, animators and sculptors who need inspiration or reference material for their work. This pack contains a female model in several different poses, shot from various angles and under volumetric lighting.
These photographs were taken during empirical research carried out in 2011 and 2013, when I gained access to 32 girls aged between eight and eleven-years old at two primary schools in a predominately affluent, white, middle-class catchment area of South England. Through a combination of focus groups, participant photography and interviews, the study explored girls’ relationships with fashion in order to understand how they articulated their age, position on the life course and the future through clothes.
Clothes acted as frequent prompts to the girls about their age; the fit, feel and size of garments on their bodies was a regular reminder about how they were growing up, with some participants referring to the loss of clothing as a mark of growing up (Hockey and James 2003). In addition, many of the garments in their wardrobe were outgrown, something that heightens their significance, and this is reflected in the narratives they construct about their favourite items of dress.
During the research, some of the girls commented that they did not like to wear ‘babyish’ clothes; they wanted to distance themselves from younger children and dress in a way that was considered more mature. This was a reflection of the desire to avoid sexification that is associated with dressing too young, as well as a concern about being seen as childish or irresponsible.
A small number of the girls referred to wearing special occasion garments, such as dresses and kimonos that they saved for the occasional school dance or wedding, as a way of experiencing an older identity for one brief, socially sanctioned event. This is an example of a form of ‘ageing up’ through clothing, similar to that described by Pilcher (2013).
For the most part, these girls were not pushing back against school dress codes because of a lack of clothing options; they did so in order to make a more powerful claim about their gendered identities, highlighting their dissatisfaction with the sexist, racist, classist and homophobic hostilities that they experience on a day-to-day basis. They want to be heard, seen and respected.