It's tough being a tween. How, for a start, can you find a look that's stylish but doesn't make you look too grown up? The trick is to keep it demure, like these members of Young People's Theatre, writes Deirdre McQuillan.
It's tough being a tween, in that time zone between the ages of about 10 and 14. It can be even tougher being a parent of a tween. Both generations know about pressure and balancing acts. Tweens want to dress like older girls whom they envy and look up to; mothers fight losing battles against their children's consumer demands.
For girls, the dolls tell it all. Barbie and her big hair may have grabbed the imagination of one impressionable generation after another, but when Bratz dolls kicked Barbie and her twinkly jackets off her pedestal, they also created headaches for many parents worried by the overt sexiness of the newcomers' clothing, not to speak of their cost.
Created by Carter Bryant and Isaac Larian, owner of the MGA Entertainment toy company, these pouty creatures, in microminis, low-cut jeans and stilettos, flashed into teenage focus in 2001 and became an instant hit. Since then more than 150 million have been sold, generating a formidable global empire that encompasses clothing, DVDs and karaoke machines, among other products.
"Teenagers go through a certain stage," says one hard-pressed mother. "They're too old for kids' clothes, and the next stage is too adult or too expensive. They have a strong sense of their own style. Bratz is really Barbie reinvented, a terribly glamorous modern version, more stylish, more fashionable, more urban and edgy."
Unlike Barbies, Bratz are micro versions of girl-band celebrity style and attitude. There are many who believe that if Bratz sport bare midriffs, fluffy eyelashes and lip gloss, their owners necessarily follow the trend. "I just love combing their hair, and I think they are really attractive," says one Irish Bratz owner. "But I think the dolls have recently got a bit out of hand," she adds, citing life-size Bratz Big Babyz as an undesirable development.
Thousands of tweens will be heading to see their beloved Yasmin, Sasha, Jade and Cloe made flesh in Bratz: The Movie. What the four characters have in common is their friendship and their passion for fashion, which the film exploits to the full. Each has a distinctive look, just as these four teenage members of Young People's Theatre do: four characters in search of their own summer style, and showing how to do it without frightening the horses.