10 year old DD needs to up her game in the style stakes...

[NotdeadyetBOING]

Took DD to a party yesterday and it suddenly dawned on me that her classmates have got all trendy. It's all ankle boots and bomber jackets, gilets etc. Poor DD still seems to be blissfully unaware of all this business, but is starting to stick out like a sore thumb with her tat purchased for a song on ebay- ancient clobber. Boden & its ilk clearly not going to cut it now. Not sure where to go to buy her suitable stuff. Zara? Not loaded. Pls share your tips……

FWIW - I have never found my DDs group to be bitchy and materialistic - but sometimes they use their clothes/stuff as conversation openers (e.g. All wearing versions of the same bracelet and comparing ). So it helps to have not actively alien stuff if you're a bit shy - but it doesn't matter if you don't care iyswim.

My dd is 8 and v particular about what she wears. She's been dressing herself since she was about 2. Last school mufty all the girls were in dresses and skirts, either looking like little girls or mini adults. Dd wanted to wear long shorts, fitted t shirt and boots. She looked like a model in comparison! I was so proud of how she was confident and in what she'd chosen.

My dd is 12 and always been into fashion.

I think it's ok if your dd isn't but lots are at that age but need a bit of help. Or she might be aware that cost is an issue and not want to ask.

At 10 dd loved primark because it was cheap and usually bang up to date with fashions. New Look on the kids section is good and she also loved river island for more expensive bits.

My dd lives in either decent leggings or skinny skinny jeans, hoodies and t shirts. She bought what dp has.called an 80s t shirt and a sporty hoody at the weekend.

For parties and more out out situations she tends to go for a slightly more dressed up look. I want to say bohemian but it's not quite. So in the summer it will be those ruffled skirts with a vest top and hoodie and flip flops. In the winter it might be nice jeans and some kind of sparkly top.

I would look online with your dd first. Before you hit the shops. Get some idea of what she likes and what she wants to buy. Otherwise you will spend hours traisping around. That's my experience anyway.

I think maybe you should use this as an opportunity to allow your dd to decide what she'd like to wear (within reason). I think it's very easy to continue treating your child like a toddler for far too long....be led by her!
One of my friends dressed her 11 year old in over-grown toddler dresses, it was very odd looking....not saying that's what you do OP but sometimes we need to recognise our kids are growing up.
I let my kids loose on H&M website, sometimes New Look but their clothes look a bit scrappy at times - they order masses of clothes and then we have a big try on session at home, we decide what they are going to keep.

My 10-year old lives in jeans and hoodies. I think she looks fab and it's practical and comfortable. I loathe seeing kids that young in "trendy" stuff. She has years of being a teenager to follow fashion if she so wishes. Otherwise I think it's fab that she's wearing what she loves.

Mmm, I've been through this and am not a proponent of the "let them dress like George out of the Famous Five" argument. This is not a situation where the only choice is between the larger sizes of Petit Bateau on the one hand and a one way ticket to Sodom & Gommorrah via a Katie Price/Donatella Versace mash up on the other. My view is that you don't need to be leading the pack at this age, but it helps to be in touching distance of it.

It doesn't actually take much - a couple of tops, a couple of pairs of trousers, which can all be worn together and can mix and match with what you have already is probably all you need to slightly shift a gear. H&M is probably your entry point and is pretty good. River Island is best avoided IMHO. Primark is a bit hit and miss but good when it is good. New Look has some surprising pockets of good teen lines (among some scary other parts - see KP/DV mash up). To be honest, the clothes are fairly cheap at this age and they grow so quickly, that nothing is a total disaster that is set in stone. And actually making a few mistakes along the way is how you learn about what suits you, the balance between comfort and appearance, etc.

I definitely agree about looking at what other children of the same age are wearing. I would just casually say, "we need to pick up some new clothes for you - can you have a think about what you need. Maybe we should have a think about trying out some new places." And take it from there.

I'll admit to overlooking that 10yr old DS was still in gap hoodies until last week. He hadn't outgrown the generous sized aged 8 ones I bought years ago. Have now put them away and replaced with a cheap nike hoodie.

oh god, is Gap a no-no?

:D

Thanks everyone some good ideas here for me too! DD 11 gets a lot of hand-me-downs but I am aware they are not always so fashionable so I've been trying to pick her up some other clothes. So far have got her jeggings from H&M and t-shirts from Primark, but I think we need another shopping trip. I get confused what brands are in / out!
She likes wearing little denim shorts with black tights, she carries this look off well. I don't like crop tops or ones with stupid phrases on but apart from that am fairly relaxed about what she wears.
Any advice on trainers - not willing to go down the £100 trainer route but on the other hand don't want her to be teased for having naff ones. What's good to get?

I was a very untrendy teenager and wish I'd had a bit more guidance. I cringe now when I think of some of the outfits I put together. I never felt very confident anyway and my clothes didn't help. It wasn't until I went to art college and did the alternative/charity-shop look that I finally felt I had some sort of style! So from personal experience I do think it's nice to give the pre-teens a bit of help to look more stylish.

Adidas Flux are 'of the moment' in our primary school, all the way to Y6, They are £35-50. Ds2 spent all his xmas money on a pair and they have not lasted v well playing football - just at break time! (They are allowed the all-black ones for school). Not impressed with quality, but prob fine for walking around, just not for actual sport .

There's a big difference between (1) choosing to dress differently from your peers as a result of a strong sense of individual style coupled with innate self-confidence, and (2) dressing differently from your peers because you don't really know what you want to wear and have only been provided with 'tat purchased for a song on eBay'.

^^This x100000

DD1 has been interested in fashion since toddler-hood. She is brilliant at it and in my eye it's one of the things that makes her 'cool, fab and wonderful'. DS1 in contrast doesn't give a shit. His complete lack of interest in one area doesn't make him cool and fab. He is as sheep like as any of his friends with joggers and hoodies. He has other things that make him fab and wonderful but looking a bloody mess all the time, not being able to put an outfit together, and never cleaning his shoes isn't one of them.

dd has just turned 11 and its been a bit of a wake up call for me the last year or so. I had continued to buy nice clothes from Boden, Joules, Lands End, John Lewis, just in the bigger age sizes and lamenting at how they stopped at age 11-12 and how when she outgrew that size what would we do. I have now realised that she has her own sense of style and while it might not be to my taste she's now growing up and needs to assert her own identity or the identity of her crowd.

A shopping trip can be a good idea, it can also be a bad idea depending on budgets and availability of stores in your town.

DD loves Zara, Gap, New Look and a bit of River Island. We get the odd basic item such as jeans and shorts in Primark. H&M at their age is very heavy on the black and Grey and not much colour wise.

dd's current look is denim shorts or dungarees with tights, converse or chunky ankle boot and then hoodies, t-shirts etc. She loves a choker necklace This is where primark is good for accessories, chokers £1.50, packs of rings £1, cute little mini backpack £8 (new look identical one is £20)

However on many occasion we've been disappointed in store and had much better luck looking and ordering online. Next is a good example of this, the stores often full of younger items, but the cooler stuff avalaible online, zara often way better online, and Gap. That may be our nearest shopping centre though (Reading). We didn't have the same issue when we visited Westfield Shepherds bush.

Also if you do go to Primark, depending on the size of your dd, check out the womens wear as sweatshirts are cheap and start at a size 4 which fits a lot of 10/11 yr olds.

also for the 'cool' rating we buy a lot online with discount codes or from the sale section, Abercrombie kids, Hollister. Super dry apparently not so cool these days, but again that depends on the area, my nieces up north still love super dry.

Elektra dd is 11 and its Adidas Superstars all the way and all of her friends. They are £50 from the likes of jd sports or foot asylum. Her dad brought her some from a website called ioffer, which were mega cheap about £15 but I think they might be fakes, however they look exactly the same as her £50 Jd sports ones.

Just don't turn it into a stick to beat her with (which it doesn't sound like you're doing, OP).

My mum is very stylish, prides herself on being well-dressed etc. We didn't have much money but she was forever taking me round the shops, desperate that I fit in with the other girls. I couldn't be bothered and was in baggy tops and Adidas trackies until uni. She always made me feel terrible about how I looked (and still bloody does!) - please don't do that.

Mine saw fitting in as 'silly'. Any sort of fashion was silly. Not fitting in was also silly so anything goth or punk or grunge was right out. I grew up in faded sweatshirts and jeans - which is fine but I couldn't have had the stonewash drainpipes when they were in because that would be silly so I was always presentable but never looked nice iyswim. I couldn't develop a sense of style as a teenager for fear of looking 'silly' (not as in wearing silly clothes but he whole concept of trying to look nice was deemed as silly). I'm still a bloody mess. I never wear accessories or make up because those years when I should have been developing those skills were spent in my room listening to meant to be overheard conversations about how I was clever and bookish (I wasn't) and 'wasn't interested is silly things like that' (I was).

I was all ready to agree with the masses and say let her be herself but that isn't even what is happening here. Being different is fine when it's a choice, but when you are different because your mum buys your clothes and doesn't let you have an opinion it's not the same. Why don't you just take her to Tesco? Asda? Primark? And let her choose her own clothes? It doesn't have to be Zara and river island. Simple and cheap is the way to go, but please, let her choose her own clothes. I don't even buy for my 7yo without asking if she actually likes it first.

Zara is actually very cheap. Cheaper than H & M often.

Also, OP, once your dd has found something she likes eg. wearing shorts and tights, there is a lot available on ebay cheaply from really nice brands. I do that with dd. She was really into shorts jumpsuits last year so I got her one from ebay and it was lovely, much better quality than some of the cheapies you get in primark etc.

As to what brands are cool - it depends on your dd's look. My kids won't wear branded clothes - they particularly hate branded sportwear - trainers are ok though. Dd wears Dm's, leggings and oversized jumpers, not sure what her friends wear. She says lots of them wear big white nike trainers - no good apparently! I'm just glad she hasn't attempted to go down the overly grown up look.

10's a good age for them to have more choice and control over what they wear. dd1 is 10 and for the last couple of years prefers to come shopping with me to choose her own stuff, usually at Next, H&M and Primark.

it's not all uber-fashionable stuff, and isn't always the same kind of stuff her mates wear - most recent purchase was a Batman jumper - but it's what she likes. I reserve a power of veto which I mostly limit to ill-fitting stuff, but have used to swerve the odd dodgy slogan-ed top.

I bet you'll both really enjoy it.

Trainers in our school (year 6) are huraches but u can't stand them. Luckily DD likes Stan smiths which I think are way cooler!

New Look and River Island do an 8+ range. My dd preferred the former.

H&M and the super markets so child-friendly trendy clothes like bomber jackets .

My dd1 is 9 and at a party on Saturday I noticed the opposite. Her classmates are very young in their clothes choices (for want of a better word) whereas dd1 has got progressively darker and rockier in her choices. I was wondering if she was too grown up although all her clothes are age appropriate, just not the bright patterned clothes that her friends wear, more blacks and dark greys and different motifs on them. Nothing wrong with either choice, just interesting watching them start to develop their own style.

Rather than worry about which brands are in/out, I'd advise a bit of people watching with your dd to suss out what she likes/dislikes.
When my dd was 10, her style was skater dresses like Taylor Swift and started to wear colours like khaki and maroon rather than pink and sequins.
Now she lives in the teen staple of dark skinnies and long hoodies with Adidas trainers. (Not Superstars which is THE shoe for girls ATM)
At age 10, she may fit into women's size 4/6 tops which may give more choice.

I remember being about 11 and realising that all my peers were dressing in teen clothes and I was still in little girl clothes.

I was not happily different because I had my own sense of style, I was unhappily different because I was just behind on the uptake and my mum hadn't a clue either.

So well done OP for realising this might help your DD with her desire to fit in.

Tawny gives good advice - your DD doesn't have to be uber fashionable, just in the same ballpark as the others, and a few bits and bobs will usually do enough. Take notice of what her friends are wearing and suggest she has a look around too to see what kind of thing she likes. Do that before you head to the shops/online.

good luck!