The Commodification of Childhood: The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer. By Daniel Thomas Cook (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. x plus 211 pp.).

Daniel Cook's thought-provoking examination of the children's clothing industry in the United States sheds new light on the development of children's consumer culture in the twentieth century. Focusing on the years between 1917, when the children's wear industry launched its first trade journal, and the end of the baby boom in the early 1960s, Cook demonstrates how children's wear became increasingly age segmented as merchants and manufacturers began designing goods and retail spaces with children's needs and desires in mind. Cook identifies the 1930s as the major turning point when merchants, manufacturers, and advertisers of children's wear recognized children rather than mothers as their primary consumer target. This shift, Cook argues, marked the emergence of a new marketing perspective--what Cook provocatively terms "pediocularity"--that viewed "the world through children's eyes" instead of a mother's eyes (p. 6).Cook provides an informative account of how children's wear merchandising became increasingly segmented and child focused. Before World War I merchandising of children's wear was rather limited. Only one factory specialized in children's clothes before 1890, and mass merchandisers often stocked children's clothing with adultclothing in various departments throughout the store. Clothing, in other words, was organized by type rather than age. As publisher of the trade journal Infants' Department, George Earnshaw played a pivotal role in pressing retailers to devote floor space and specially trained salesclerks to children's departments. This strategy first gained traction in infants' departments, which courted the loyalty of mothers by hosting talks about infant care and staging baby contests during the U.S. Children's Bureau's "Baby Week" campaigns. By the late 1920s, department stores and chains like Sears and Montgomery Ward began including children's departments that catered to school-age boys and girls. Most strikingly, in the 1930s children's clothing departments were divided and subdivided into a range of gender and age groupings.

Cook highlights a variety of factors that made manufacturers more attentive to the child's point of view in the 1930s. Faced with shrinking markets in the Depression, merchants and manufacturers likely saw greater age segmentation as an opportunity to expand demand. By recognizing that children possessed personal desires and stressing the importance of personality development, childrearing advice also helped legitimize the practice of giving children a greater say in their own clothing. In translating such advice, women's magazines encouraged parents to consider children's preferences and concerns about fitting in with their peers when selecting clothing. They also suggested that allowing children to choose their clothing helped children learn good taste. Children's popular culture also advanced child-focused merchandising. Child stars like Jane Withers, Judy Garland, and Mickey Rooney all either had their own clothing lines or endorsed children's wear. Cook in particular credits Shirley Temple, whose own stage dresses and retail line of clothing had a toddler "look," for helping to make the toddler-size style range for girls a viable new merchandising category.

Cook's most interesting and original chapters (the final two) detail the strategies merchants used to "appeal to the child as the decisive consumer" (p. 97). Retailers decorated stores in bold primary colors, lowered counters and mirrors to convenient child heights, and placed clothing within easy grasp. Some even put swings in their store and awarded boys subscriptions to American Boy when they made a purchase of $10 or more. Well-trained salesclerks treated children as equals and avoided any hint of condescension. Sensitive to teenagers' yearnings for autonomy, youthful salesclerks even sided with teens over their mothers. As industry segmentation accelerated in the 1940s and 1950s, retailers became savvier in appealing to preteen and teenage girls. Stores "institutionalized and appropriated the clique structure of white, middle-class teen girl peer society" by recruiting popular high school girls to serve on fashion boards and to model merchandise in store fashion shows. Owners and buyers regarded these popular teens as "translators" of youth culture and expected that other teens would follow their fashion lead (p. 131). Retailers also learned that the success of the new teen departments and the new preteen size category hinged on their "visual, spatial, and stylistic distinctiveness from younger children's areas" (p. 133). Locating teen departments far from baby departments and next to the college shop appealed to teenage girls who studiously avoided appearing too young and often took their fashion cues from college-aged women. As Cook insightfully explains, "in the world of the high school and junior high, independence and maturity--or at least their public, bodily markers--functioned as a form of cultural capital" (p. 139).

Traveling with my daughters used to be easy. They would gamely explore anything, as long as there was the promise of ice cream at the end. But when Anjelica, 12, and Natalia, 15, each hit middle school, they rebelled. All they wanted to see in a new city was ... the mall. Overnight, I became an earnest guidebook-toting frump. During a recent trek to Phoenix and Scottsdale, though, I decided to spiff up my image and walk a mile in my daughters' Hollister Co. flip-flops. I proposed a girlie itinerary that included pampering at one of the area's legendary spas, browsing for vintage bargains, and (legally) checking out downtown Scottsdale's burgeoning nightlife scene. And just so the girls wouldn't think I'd completely turned over a new parenting leaf, I also snuck in a culturally enlightening museum visit. A car is the best way to get around town, but luckily my two are still too young to drive.

ShopKo's latest merchandising effort, a teen lifestyle department called Urbanology, is squarely situated at the crossroads of where the company has come from and where it is headed. It showcases not only ShopKo's ability to build on core departments and competencies, but also its ingenuity and drive to differentiate from the competition.

Urbanology is a microcosm of several different departments all focused on one thing--the younger consumer.

Located near the front and center of the store, the area is clearly targeting Generation Y girls by coordinating youth-oriented apparel, accessories, home accents, electronics and even magazines.
The department features such items as denim apparel, glitter makeup, room or dorm accessories, denim bags, bright-colored backpacks, sleepwear, trendy jewelry, slippers, CD holders, portable CD players in bright colors, neon wall clocks, candles and furry pillows.

Urbanology is a self-contained department: two sides on an aisle and back walls strung with merchandise. Teen-oriented magazines are placed throughout, display racks are of varying styles and sizes, and overstuffed pillows and chairs help create a cozy, welcoming atmosphere. It looks more like a specialty store in a shopping mall than a couple-thousand-square-foot department found within a discount department store. The company plans to staff the department with a "Generation Y"-type teammate during peak hours.