Sartorially speaking, an infant is barely more than part of a parent’s outfit, like a handbag or a jacket. Put your baby in a little blue bubble smocked with yellow sun-shines, and you have a whimsical accessory for a day at the beach! As they get older, though, kids develop brains and personalities. That’s when—sigh, FINE—we have to start treating them like people.
Smocked clothing on a toddler, precious as it is, should express something true about the child wearing it. A farm-obsessed tot with wee green tractors and pink pigs across the gathered placket of his T-shirt? Magnificent! A preschooler with a seafood allergy wearing lobster-smocked gingham overalls? That’s either a dark inside joke or a thoughtless offense to the child’s selfhood.
Now consider a gaggle of fourth graders…
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Garden & Gun (Digital) - 1 Issue, April/May 2025