Children's Clothes, Children's Psyches
IN the sea of parents and nannies waiting outside Public School 87 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan the other afternoon, Marilise Flusser was hard to overlook. She was the mother in the Mickey Mouse colors -- canary yellow clogs and matching sweatsuit under a tomato red raincoat lined in more canary yellow. The one-green-sock, one-red-sock mother. "Kids love color," she said as girls and boys in bright parkas and backpacks began spilling out of the school door and onto the sidewalk.
Suddenly this stretch of West 78th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues became a fashion runway with Ms. Flusser, a former children's fashion coordinator at Saks Fifth Avenue, doing curbside commentary.
A pair of 7-year-old girls danced by in hot hairdos. ("The '90s ponytail, looped or braided, with scrunchies at either end.") They were followed by Sam Kendig, 9, in significant spectacles. ("Great glasses: trendy round rims and turquoise frames.")
Tanya Tripi-Weiss, 11, peered out from under a red felt gaucho hat. ("A definite fifth-grade look.") Then came Mrs. Flusser's younger daughter, Piper, 8, in hot-pink leggings and an oversized parka that she had borrowed from her father, Alan Flusser, a men's wear designer. ("She loves her Dad's parka because it's roomy and warm and lined with flannel.")
A few children at P.S. 87 appear as models in Ms. Flusser's new book, "Party Shoes to School and Baseball Caps to Bed" (Simon and Schuster, $12). A 255-page guide to clothing for children from infancy through the second grade, the book is the first to grapple with what its author calls "one of the great underground issues of parenting."
Let Dr. Spock and company dispense advice on the picky eater, the problem sleeper, the sandbox bully. Ms. Flusser takes on the difficult dresser. Or underdresser, in the case of free spirits between 2 and 3 who romp naked in the living room when company comes.
Ms. Flusser had help from experts. The book, which brims with tips, observations and anecdotes, draws on interviews with more than 300 teachers, pediatricians, child psychologists, clothing manufacturers and, best of all, those veterans of wardrobe wars, parents.
For example, the mother of a kindergartener named Jeremy who refused to wear his new jeans for the first two weeks of school. Only his summer shorts would do. Was something wrong with the jeans? Or with Jeremy?
No. As it happened, Jeremy was embarrassed because he couldn't close the snap on the jeans by himself in the bathroom. "I taught him an old trick I'd learned growing up in Kentucky," the mother said. "Get your jeans shut by pressing your body against the wall and holding your thumb against the inside snap."
The Flussers live a block from the school in a grand old building, the Apthorp. Their sprawling apartment is filled with English antiques, flea market finds and Victorian Christmas decorations and, in the kitchen, a frieze of empty soap and cereal boxes. Usually there is an assortment of visiting children.
Returning home from the school, Ms. Flusser found two other models from the book -- her nephews Willie Matthau, 6, and Read Flusser, 5 -- flying through the air on swings suspended from the tops of door frames.
Willie appears in a group photograph of small boys with hilarious hat fetishes. His mother, Suzanne Matthau, who is Ms. Flusser's twin, said Willie has at least 14 hats: "a policeman, fireman, Mickey Mouse ears, even a Santa Claus hat with his name on it in sequins."
Boys sometimes use hats to experiment with identity in the early years, Ms. Flusser said, adding that Willie, at 3 1/2, often wore two hats at a time. "Parents should not be surprised if little boys love hats so much they want to sleep in them," she said, glancing at Willie, who has given up hats for comic-book-character T-shirts. "So, it passes."
At this point Ms. Flusser's older daughter, Skye, 11, arrived from school in a floral print dress by Betsey Johnson and ankle cowboy boots. ("Major footwear in junior high.")
It was Skye who taught Ms. Flusser that young children care nothing for fashion. Comfort, color, ease of dressing -- these are the factors that count when children choose clothes, along with individual temperament, self-expression and a desire for autonomy.
Children have a way of expressing this, Ms. Flusser said. It is called the temper tantrum. Skye had one on her third birthday. Instead of a fancy new party dress ("which probably was scratchy," her mother conceded) Skye wore the same T-shirt dress she had been living in for four months.
Ms. Flusser, who grew up in the Carlyle Hotel wearing white gloves, was scandalized. "But after that my own attitudes about dressing my kids became more thoughtful," she said, looking over her tea cup. "As good parents we'd all like to think that our little girl would tell us when the boys in the schoolyard tease her about her underpants. We'd like to think our little boy would tell us how sad he feels because the other kids are reading and he's still on picture books. But they can't always."
Instead, she said, the little girl takes to wearing sweatpants under her dresses, even when visiting her grandparents in Florida. Her mother is mortified.
And the little boy, believing that sneakers are magic, nags his parents for a new style worn by boys who can read. His father thinks he's spoiled.
Life has changed, Ms. Flusser said, since the age of the "trophy kid," the mid-1980's when mothers traded tips on where to buy the well-bred smocked dress or navy blazer. "Today it's how to get the kids dressed and out of the house for day care," she said. "There are more important things to fight about than clothes, like safety, manners and bedtime."