Two years ago, on April Fool's Day, the menswear edition of Style.com published an article about a hot new design prodigy named Damian Finch, who wowed the fashion world by showing a full collection at the ripe young age of 12.
"It's like, I can't do much about my age," Finch was quoted as saying. "I just like to make cool clothes. And if you use the word 'tween,' I'm going to puke."
This was right around the time real-life prodigies - like 12-year-old fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson, 12-year-old food critic David Fishman and 14-year-old conservative pundit Jonathan Krohn - were being discovered and celebrated, so it was perhaps less surprising than it should have been that readers took the report at face value and demanded to know where they could buy Finch's clothes.
It was a spoof.
"We got requests from many publications, mostly foreign magazines, asking for Damian," said Dirk Standen, the editor in chief of Style.com, a slight degree of remorse detectable in his tone. The boy photographed for the story was Standen's son, 12 years old at the time, posing in a ribbed knit cap, a white oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows.
As a parent, Standen said, he had conflicting feelings about children who are obsessed with fashion and, inspired by teenage celebrities and empowered by the Internet, are starting what could be called their careers at such an early age, especially in the fashion industry. But in the time since his parody appeared, at least half a dozen actual teenagers and tweens have started their own collections, some of them as young as 10.
One of the most successful, Cecilia Cassini, an 11-year-old from Encino, Calif., is marketed on her e-commerce site as the "world's youngest fashion designer" and a "kiddie couturier." Her trademark is a large silk bow she often wears in her hair or attaches to the front of a party frock. She has appeared on the "Today" show, making a custom dress for Jenna Bush Hager, and, according to her father, has sold nearly 500 designs since she started her business, back when she was 10. One of her inspirations is Lourdes Leon, the 14-year-old daughter of Madonna, who helps design Material Girl, the singer's juniors collection sold at Macy's.
"Look at how many famous teens there are now," Cecilia said in a phone interview. "Fashion is a hot thing to be into when you're young."
"Kiddie couturiers" are perhaps the ultimate, inevitable result of a fashion culture that is obsessed with youth (Prada, Valentino and Rodarte are now dressing young stars like Hailee Steinfeld and Elle Fanning in runway fashions) and a youth culture that is obsessed with fashion (see: Polyvore, Second Life, "Project Runway"). But the fact that fashion has become a field that is so easy for a tween to crack says a lot about how much the perception of a designer has changed.
"It is interesting social commentary, more than anything," said Michael Fink, the dean of the school of fashion design at Savannah College of Art and Design. "The fact that you can design your own line on almost any fashion website means there is very little mystery out there at any age as to how an industry works today. It's overly accessible."
Often, with incoming freshmen, he said, "we now have to kindly erase the notion of what fashion is from their minds." Many of their impressions are based on what they see on styling shows or at their local malls.
"That's the thing about these tween designers," Fink said. "Where is the celebration of the art and the craft? Where is the historical knowledge?"
Questions also arise about exposing children to public scrutiny, and there are further worries that some of them are being manipulated for the novelty of their age. Cecilia Cassini was originally managed by Pilar DeMann, who once promoted the Kardashians, and many of the teenage bloggers have been courted by designers for promotional purposes. It seems hard for anyone to be able to say no.
Too much too soon?
"I'm not sure it's up to us to say whether this is healthy or unhealthy," said Standen of Style.com. "If you take Tavi as an example of a writer and a blogger, she really loves this stuff and she is really knowledgeable about it, so you think: Why shouldn't she be doing it?"
Then, too, there is a new generation of designers who began introducing collections right out of college - fashion stars like Alexander Wang, Jason Wu, and Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler. Their overnight successes inspired other designers to follow suit, at ever earlier ages, like Esteban Cortazar, when he was 14, and Pedro Lourenco, a Brazilian who showed at Paris Fashion Week when he was 19.
"I would tell people they shouldn't wait until they're 20 to be in fashion," Cecilia said. "Even if you're 5, you can still do it."
Last week, as hundreds of established fashion designers were presenting their fall collections in New York, Madison Waldrop, 13, was just getting started on hers. She shopped for fabrics along the side streets of the garment district, while her parents, who breed champion toy poodles, attended the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Madison, a fashion newbie from Chattanooga, Tenn., is developing a dress collection called Designs by Malyse, specializing in evening and bridal gowns. She hopes to introduce a full line to buyers in October, at the WeddingChannel Couture Show. The fact that she is still in the eighth grade is not likely to stop her.
"This is something that I truly love to do," Madison said. "For me, it's not just about designing that cutesy dress; it's the whole process of actually making clothes that I love."
Last March, while waiting for a flight, she started doodling, and, encouraged by her mother, Christine Waldrop, she decided this is what she wanted to do as a career. Her parents - her dad, Mark Waldrop, is a chief operating officer for a health care company in Georgia - helped her establish a business, contract local seamstresses, create a website and hire a publicist. Her first dress was a silver halter mini in dupioni silk, with a large rosette of orange and blue petals at the neckline. Her least expensive dresses will cost about $500, she said. "I like making my own trends and very confident bold pieces," she said.
