Kiddie Glitter : Dressing Up, That Children’s Playtime Favorite, Has Gone Public

There was a time when some particularly magical moments in children’s lives were lived out behind closed doors: moments when they played dress-up in tattered fairy wings, tutus styled from odd scraps of grown-up lingerie or Superman capes made from towels. They were simply not allowed out in public wearing their costumes. What would the neighbors think?

Now, not only the neighbors but the cashiers at the supermarkets and waiters at family restaurants are privy to the outlandish costumes preschoolers can devise. Out of the closet and onto the streets come toddling Robocops, pre-adolescent Cinderellas and child brides.

Shop owner Wanda Fudge spotted a fairy princess at Ralphs, her local market. But then she has a special interest in close encounters of this kind. Fudge owns Kids in Costume, a Melrose Avenue children’s costume shop.

The 4-year-old princess, dressed in a sweat suit and crumpled pink fairy wings, was escorted by her conservatively suited and briefcase-toting father. When Fudge remarked how lovely the little girl looked in her wings, the father was mortified. Appalled by the disreputable state of the wings, he confessed to Fudge that even though the wings were only 2 weeks old, his daughter wore them to bed every night.

What do such children do on Halloween, the one day of the year when costumes are considered “normal”? You might think they would see it as a high point, but no. If you can play dress-up on a daily basis, Halloween is just another day, except for the caloric rewards of trick-or-treating.

And for more children than ever, it seems, costumes have become a part of daily life.

When Nikolaus and Matthew Ward used to watch “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” they insisted on two changes of clothes. They would begin the show dressed just like Fred Rogers in a jacket, tie and dress shoes. As Rogers slipped into something more comfortable, his cardigan sweater and sneakers, so did the Wards. Matthew even took to combing his hair a la Rogers, severely parted and slicked smooth as a lounge lizard’s.

As the Wards began to outgrow Mr. Rogers, they turned to the animated cartoon character, Inspector Gadget, for sartorial inspiration. Carrying treasure maps of their own making, they now traverse their West Hills neighborhood wearing fedoras and overcoats belted with ties.

Nikolaus, 9, has reached the outer limits of the age range for dress-up fantasies. He can only be coerced into playing with his brothers if none of his friends are around.

Typically, children begin their costume epics around age 3 and usually abandon them when they reach elementary school. By that time, facts have muddied the waters of their fiction.

“By the age of 7, children get a sense for what is fantasy and what is reality, and they stop acting in the fanciful way a younger child will act,” explains Charles Weinstein, an Encino-based clinical psychologist who specializes in treating children.

But during those fanciful years, the character costumes that children invent are not necessarily store bought. They can be treasures gathered from parents’ closets or ransacked from linen drawers. Lingerie hand-me-downs are a staple for princesses, ballerinas and fairies. A broom handle can become a little boy’s pretend weapon.

“I will tell you,” says Sally Gevirtz, “the socialization process between boys and girls is different.”

Almost every day Gevirtz sees children coming into her Santa Monica children’s store, Quinby’s, wearing fantasy clothes. She also has noted that the boys arrive dressed like superheroes and they make a beeline for the trucks and cars, while the girls, looking like fairy princesses, go for soft little fuzzy things. Even in our more enlightened “Sesame Street” times, there is no escaping the sexual stereotypes.

To explain that phenomenon, Weinstein says: “You have to look to the parents. They are the ones who have foisted the favored characters from their youths onto their children. I see a lot of the things that we saw 30 years ago. It comes from a sense of nostalgia and narcissism on the part of the baby boomers.”

Instead of the Alfs and Punky Brewsters popular on TV today, we’re still seeing Peter Pans and Cinderellas, holdovers from the ‘50s. Any preschooler who shows a penchant for playing Robocop or any of the heavies topical in the ‘80s is usually under the influence of older siblings.

Wedding Gown Blues

Five-year-old Molly Campbell spent her entire fourth year yearning for a bridal gown and was compelled to fashion her own out of her mother’s old slips and nightgowns. That is, until Christmas, when her aunt gave her a real child-size wedding dress. Yes, it’s true, wherever there are childish yearnings, capitalism can’t be far behind.

Now that she is 5 and her tastes have matured, Campbell finds Olivia Newton-John’s costumes from the movie “Grease” much more appealing. A leotard that can be pulled down for that off-the-shoulder look. Tights and her mother’s knee socks scrunched down like leg warmers are her favorite get-up for sing-alongs with Olivia.

Campbell has made a thorough study of dressing up and can even pass along a few fashion tips.

“If you wear your pink jellies (plastic sandals) inside the high heels, you can walk better,” she says.

Some children find inspiration for their characters from classic books. For 3-year-old Kati Prescott, a long scarf is all it takes to become the A. A. Milne character “Piglet.”

Barbara Diner, a nursery school teacher in Van Nuys, finds her 2- to 3-year-old charges need nothing more than a barrette decorated with ballet shoes to become a ballerina. A red T-shirt gives a child license to be a fire truck.

“Sometimes what they’re holding is as important as what they’re wearing. They don’t limit themselves to characters; they can become inanimate objects or their clothes can transport them to another location,” Diner observes.

Color Counts Too

Color seems to be as important to some children as the character. For child-model Audrey Rogers, simply pretending to be her Barbie doll is not sufficient. She has devised a repertoire of color-coded Barbie looks--red Barbie, green Barbie and blue Barbie. With each new Barbie costume (always in a dress, because she insists Barbie never wears pants), she asks that her mother pretend her hair matches her clothes.

“She’s desperate to have blue hair,” her mother says. “In fact, when she plays Sleeping Beauty, she always wants to be the fairy godmother, Merriweather, because she was dressed all in blue. And whenever she puts on her green dress, she’s a bride, with green hair, of course.”

Dressing in fantasy clothes is all in a day’s work for Audrey. Her most recent job was posing for the cover of the Disney Christmas catalogue, a job she particularly enjoyed because of all the Minnie Mouse regalia she was asked to wear. But pretending it’s Christmas in July caused havoc at home. During the weeks when Audrey worked on the catalogue, she was convinced that every night was Christmas Eve and Santa would be coming to her house.

Costumes don’t meet many of the dress codes at the local preschools. In fact, most teachers shudder at the thought of a roomful of super-powered children.

Heroic Dressing

Audrey has a classmate at her preschool who is all but obsessed with Superman. He refuses to wear anything but his Superman pajamas to school. His cape inevitably gets entangled in the playground equipment. Diner too has found that the playground is no place for the Man of Steel. She found one of her students dressed in his superhero costume, poised at the top of a piece of playground equipment and ready to jump--fully believing in his ability to fly.

For most children the adoption of a favorite character is rarely harmful, emotionally or physically.

“Play is a child’s way of communicating,” Weinstein says, “and these fantasies are usually very complicated scenarios that they want to act out. For these young, extremely creative children, the world around them is a very magical place.”