Back in the days when the autumn weather was turning colder, and the economic climate was positively freezing, a certain UK High Street store launched a fashion fix par excellence.
With the Christmas party season threatening to be buried under an avalanche of debt, what could be more appealing than to adorn yourself in something alluring; to sparkle and scintillate in a frock stiff with sequin-encrusted embroidery; to fizzle in the soft silver-grey of silk satin folds; to lift your eyes demurely above bare shoulders and shoe-string straps; in short, to feel like a Princess? Glamorous evening gowns, feminine fabrics and décolletage are enough to thrill any woman's heart and one of the best was advertised in one of the upmarket broadsheets.
Mellifluously modelled by a doe-eyed, platinum blonde in whose pink, smiling mouth butter wouldn't melt, the best bit of all was the price of this dress.
Could it be true? A mere thirty-eight pounds? IS THIS TRULY CHILDHOOD AMBITION? But wait! This was not a frock for flirty forty year olds, nor even for the thonged thirties.
This was a dress for their darling daughters.
For seven and eight year olds.
Evening gowns sold for children are only half of it.
Now we read of Little Miss Makeover parties.
A whole industry has already grown up catering for birthday parties with magicians, bouncy castles, and themed venues on offer, at a price.
Most offer junk food and charge obscene amounts of money per child.
So what of this latest fad? Lipsticked and mascara d, painted and polished, the children, we are told by Cassandra Jardine, writing in The Telegraph Magazine, "looked delicious, not tarty.
" Naturally, she continues "everyone went away happy.
" I bet they did, I thought, tartly.
RECLAIMING CHILDHOOD When the best evening gowns story broke, I was strenuous in announcing my outrage.
I had read of Sue Palmer's book, Toxic Childhood, and adhered to many of the arguments about how the modern world is damaging our children.
I had some sympathy, too, with the Islamic argument against Western society's "sexualisation" of children.
Indeed, my own daughter refuses to conform to much of the liturgy of the twenty-first century's demands upon parents.
Pass the parcel was played with a great deal of hilarity at the twins' fifth birthday party in their own back garden last week.
And their request for pink roast lamb, barbecued chicken kebabs and dressed green salad as the menu for their lunchtime 'do' met - eventually, after some reluctance and a good deal of cajoling on mummy's part - with the approval of most of the miniature guests.
CHILDHOOD MEMORABILIA But I did have to do a "double take" on the presents she and daddy had bought for their offspring: a blue MP3 player for one, and a pink one for the other.
I couldn't help myself.
I openly questioned the wisdom of such purchases for such tiny people.
What was wrong with the conventional toys with which my children, their mother and aunt, had played? Whatever would be left for the twins to wish for in the future? Then I remembered the austerity of my own post-war childhood, and the yearning that, eventually, brought me, on my tenth birthday, a coveted turquoise plastic-covered Dancette record player, complete with Bakerlite seventy-eights.
My grandparents had played with penny whistles, and my mother with a gramophone.
Did I really expect the twins to revert to the toys of a previous generation? And thinking back to those glamorous evening gowns, the fashion fix, and the make-over parties, are today's children really under threat? Are they, in fact, any different from their mother, their grandmother or great-grandmama? Somehow, I doubt it.
Let's be honest.
Isn't it every little girl's dream to dress up in mummy's frock, to put on mummy's lipstick and rouge, and to sway to the music of the moment? It didn't do me any harm.
It didn't do my daughter any harm.
And I don't suppose it will do the twins and their contemporaries any harm either.
Let's not spoil their innocent fun by putting adult connotations on it.
After all, isn't that, in effect, bringing about the very thing we profess to denounce: the death of childhood?
With the Christmas party season threatening to be buried under an avalanche of debt, what could be more appealing than to adorn yourself in something alluring; to sparkle and scintillate in a frock stiff with sequin-encrusted embroidery; to fizzle in the soft silver-grey of silk satin folds; to lift your eyes demurely above bare shoulders and shoe-string straps; in short, to feel like a Princess? Glamorous evening gowns, feminine fabrics and décolletage are enough to thrill any woman's heart and one of the best was advertised in one of the upmarket broadsheets.
Mellifluously modelled by a doe-eyed, platinum blonde in whose pink, smiling mouth butter wouldn't melt, the best bit of all was the price of this dress.
Could it be true? A mere thirty-eight pounds? IS THIS TRULY CHILDHOOD AMBITION? But wait! This was not a frock for flirty forty year olds, nor even for the thonged thirties.
This was a dress for their darling daughters.
For seven and eight year olds.
Evening gowns sold for children are only half of it.
Now we read of Little Miss Makeover parties.
A whole industry has already grown up catering for birthday parties with magicians, bouncy castles, and themed venues on offer, at a price.
Most offer junk food and charge obscene amounts of money per child.
So what of this latest fad? Lipsticked and mascara d, painted and polished, the children, we are told by Cassandra Jardine, writing in The Telegraph Magazine, "looked delicious, not tarty.
" Naturally, she continues "everyone went away happy.
" I bet they did, I thought, tartly.
RECLAIMING CHILDHOOD When the best evening gowns story broke, I was strenuous in announcing my outrage.
I had read of Sue Palmer's book, Toxic Childhood, and adhered to many of the arguments about how the modern world is damaging our children.
I had some sympathy, too, with the Islamic argument against Western society's "sexualisation" of children.
Indeed, my own daughter refuses to conform to much of the liturgy of the twenty-first century's demands upon parents.
Pass the parcel was played with a great deal of hilarity at the twins' fifth birthday party in their own back garden last week.
And their request for pink roast lamb, barbecued chicken kebabs and dressed green salad as the menu for their lunchtime 'do' met - eventually, after some reluctance and a good deal of cajoling on mummy's part - with the approval of most of the miniature guests.
CHILDHOOD MEMORABILIA But I did have to do a "double take" on the presents she and daddy had bought for their offspring: a blue MP3 player for one, and a pink one for the other.
I couldn't help myself.
I openly questioned the wisdom of such purchases for such tiny people.
What was wrong with the conventional toys with which my children, their mother and aunt, had played? Whatever would be left for the twins to wish for in the future? Then I remembered the austerity of my own post-war childhood, and the yearning that, eventually, brought me, on my tenth birthday, a coveted turquoise plastic-covered Dancette record player, complete with Bakerlite seventy-eights.
My grandparents had played with penny whistles, and my mother with a gramophone.
Did I really expect the twins to revert to the toys of a previous generation? And thinking back to those glamorous evening gowns, the fashion fix, and the make-over parties, are today's children really under threat? Are they, in fact, any different from their mother, their grandmother or great-grandmama? Somehow, I doubt it.
Let's be honest.
Isn't it every little girl's dream to dress up in mummy's frock, to put on mummy's lipstick and rouge, and to sway to the music of the moment? It didn't do me any harm.
It didn't do my daughter any harm.
And I don't suppose it will do the twins and their contemporaries any harm either.
Let's not spoil their innocent fun by putting adult connotations on it.
After all, isn't that, in effect, bringing about the very thing we profess to denounce: the death of childhood?