Fifi's Fashion Declaration

My Fifi is two things above all else: fantastically grateful when receiving gifts, and true to herself in all things fashion and style.

When she was 6 years old she, like most little girls, got very interested in Little House On The Prarie and pioneers in general. She used to put on a little white baby bonnet and ask me if it looked like a baby bonnet. She wanted it to look like a pioneer bonnet. While I would never have forbade her to wear it, I had to be honest, "Yes, that's a baby bonnet and no, nobody is going to be fooled. "

For her 7th birthday, I made her a calico pioneer dress -- brown with little white and yellow flowers. I included an apron and...yeah -- the bonnet. I don't know who was closer to bursting: Fifi when she opened her gift, or me at her stunned-silent excitement.

She wore that outfit everywhere. All the time. It was long sleeved, layered with the apron, and her birthday is in June. And it's kind of hot here in South Texas in June. Suffering for her art, I guess. For at least a year, Laura Ingalls followed us to the grocery store, violin lessons, the mall and the gym.

It was kind of sad to see the dress go by the wayside because it was deemed too short by a little girl who requires her skirt lengths reach the ground. Not her knees. Not her ankles. To the ground. The hem should be dirty at the end of the day. The next year, she had moved on to the Revolutionary War and so that season's high fashion was "Casual Colonial."

Fifi is 11 now. A young lady. She's wearing the smallest women's sizes. She's got a casual classic way in the making. Clean lines. Loose, yet flattering apparel. Conservative. That is, until now.

She's reading the Little House series again. I think it's below her level, but this time, she's doing research. (I'm not sure that she realizes that's what she's doing.) She's checking timelines, perusing period cookbooks, learning about their crafts and culture. It's all clicking so much more meaningfully for her than it did the first time around in 2nd grade. And she's talking about it all day long. It's really sweet.

Today, she announced that the long denim skirt that she wears over the hoop she got when she was the flower girl in my cousin's wedding will be her daily attire. Everyday. Everywhere. I asked her if she was ready with an answer when the other kids might ask her why she's dressed that way, and she said, "Yes. I'll say it's because I like it."

So she tied on her apron, pulled her hair back in a netted bun and we headed to the gym's kid's space with plans to shop at the warehouse grocery store a little later. Guess what? No one asked her why, though many people stared, and littler girls could be heard everywhere we went murmuring, "Oh! There's a girl in a pretty dress! Look at that, Mommy!"