et tutu brute?

I caved. I let my daughter buy a skirt from the Gap that looks like a tutu. And not just one, but two.

Let me backtrack here. I have two lovely, lovely daughters. One is 11, the other  is 7. Here's what they hear all the time "OH!! It must be so wonderful having a mother who is a DESIGNER!! Do you sew like your Mommy?" Here's what they're thinking - "Our Mom? Oh, you mean Tim Gunn in a dress, whose daily reviews of anything we want but she doesn't sew  herself make Joan Rivers' red carpet shows look like a lovefest?"

No, no, no..it's not quite that bad. But I have been sewing my daughters' clothes since before I knew they were girls. My oldest has an uncanny sense of design - she can walk into the bowels of the garment district, pull out a fabric and say, "Can we make a skirt out of this?" Her choice will be spot on, and she will wear it until she outgrows it. My youngest LOVES clothes, and will change 14 times a day, look in the mirror, and give herself a thumbs up. They constantly say things like "Oh, Mommy, that's so pretty! I LOVE that!" Or "What a great color." They compliment people on their clothes all the time - whether it's something I made or not. They don't miss a trick. I have had 13-year-old Bat Mitzvah clients fall apart into tears about making a color choice, let alone picking a fabric. The unseen, unmade garment can be a very, very frightening thing to a girl.

My hope all along has been to develop my daughters' unique sense of self through their clothes - to be an individual. To not want something just because everyone else has it, but because they love it, and it reflects them as a person. I will make them what they come up with, ask them what they want to wear, and try to make it a reality. Plus, I figure if I do this now, it avoids the whole A&F teen hooker look that looms in our future - I'm hoping they find a road away from objectifying themselves to one expressing themselves. When they ask me before bedtime, "Mommy, will you help me pick out my clothes for tomorrow?" you have never seen an exhausted women get a second wind faster - because I know it won't last. I know one day, they will say, "This is what I'm wearing, whether you like it or not." Some parents choose not to fight this battle, but that would be like telling a nutritionist to feed their kids candy for breakfast - it goes against every fiber of my being.

So anywho, back to the tutu. My oldest had a Gap gift card, went online, and presented to me her choice - this skirt. My first reaction was not from a happy place. I let her read the negative reviews. But I still brought her to the store to check it out, and said a flat-out "No - it looks ridiculous." She was crestfallen. They did not have the color she wanted anyway, so we left.

The next day, feeling more than a little guilty, I looked online. It was now 60% off - my thought: "Because who is buying primrose-colored tutus?" - and after a couple calls, I found one locally for her to try on, and had it held. We went after school, she tried it, she loved it, she thought about how she would wear it, she used her gift card to buy it. In two colors. And her sister got one, too. Sometimes I can see outside my ivory tower of design, of high-end fabrics and perfectly-fitted clothes, to the fact that his was my whole point for her - she felt this skirt was her, in all its poly poofiness. Just don't get me started on the whole Uggs conversation. It gets pretty ugly.