Playing dress up
Tiktok users are having fun imagining how the icons of children’s literature would dress if they were 20 years old.
FANCY Nancy, Junie B. Jones ... These characters were part of many Americans’ childhoods, so much so that as adults they often have a fond nostalgic view of them.
And some of these adults are giving them new life on Tiktok by having fun imagining how they would dress as adults.
Very few six-year-olds have the lifestyle of Eloise (characted in Kay Thompson’s Eloise books). The little girl lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York, with her governess, her dog Weenie and her turtle Skipperdee. Her daily life is an endless stream of social functions, shopping sprees and even impromptu trips to Paris with her entire menagerie.
As unrealistic as it may be, Eloise’s world continues to fascinate Americans.
The little girl has made her mark on several generations of women with her black skirt with suspenders, her puffed-sleeve white blouse and her red hair bow.
This preppy look caught the attention of Meredith Schmidt, a 24-year-old American known as @ mere.sch on Tiktok. She was inspired to imagine how the heroine of children’s literature would dress if she was in her 20s and share her vision on the social network.
The wardrobe includes ballet flats, frills and a succession of flowing white outfits. And her moodboard has attracted the attention of internet users, having been viewed more than 193,000 times on Tiktok at the time of writing.
However, Schmidt’s fashion projections have also sparked some debate in the comments.
While some Tiktok users believe that they fit perfectly with Eloise’s personality, others say that the girl would have adopted a much less conventional look as an adult.
“I imagined her to dress as a tomboy in adulthood. she was dressed like that as a child, but her personality was starchily different from her looks,” the post reads.
Wardrobe inspired from kid lit
In any case, the popularity of her video about Eloise has led Schmidt to look at the looks of other icons of children’s literature. Madeleine is one of them (stories by Austrian-american author Ludwig Bemelmans).
The little French orphan girl has left her mark on the minds of millions of young readers with her fuzzy bob, her mid-length blue coat and her yellow hat, halfway between a floppy hat and a boater.
A very Parisian look that she would have kept up as an adult, according to Schmidt. The Texan selected the outfits that Madeleine would wear, nowadays, to go to a friend’s birthday party, the airport or a wine bar. This range of bluetoned outfits seems to have delighted the young users of Tiktok, with the video having racked up more than 146,000 views at the time of writing since its publication on July 6.
Schmidt’s posts dedicated to the styles of Junie B. Jones and Fancy Nancy, two emblematic figures of children’s literature in the United States, have also met with great success on the social network preferred by the younger generation.
This interest is a testament to the profound impact that these prepubescent heroes and heroines continue to have on the readers who devoured their adventures as children.
Researchers at Ohio State University have found that individuals who “lose themselves” in the world of a fictional character can modify their behaviors and belief systems to reflect those of the protagonist. A phenomenon scientists have called “experience-taking.”
For Schmidt, the explanation is different.
“I’ve noticed that people have been really investing in their childhood passions recently, so I think people like to see the characters that they loved as a kid and how they can still relate to them and envision them now,” she told Mashable. This nostalgic lure is exported visually on social networks and gives rise to new “aesthetics” in connection with the leading female characters of our youth.
Their names: Eloisetok, American Girl Doll-core and, the most popular, Barbiecore. Movements that are, for their followers, a way to escape from everyday reality and immerse themselves in comforting worlds. – Afprelaxnews