I blame fashion-obsessed parents for the obnoxious heels made for babies
Pee Wee Pumps, an American shoemaker for children, has designed pumps/heels for newborns and toddlers. These are soft slippers with pointed and collapsible heels.
Interestingly, the footwear comes with leopard and zebra prints and names like "Sassy", "Diva", "Glamorous" and "Wild Child".
The likes of models such as Lily Aldridge and Alessandra Ambrosio strutting in their high heels and bikinis at a Victoria's Secret fashion show is one thing, but watching mere infants pose wearing stillettos on the web is hideous on multiple levels.
The vision of wee babies donning the odd pump is supposedly to lure mothers into giving their toddlers a fashion makeover.
To me, founder Michele Holbrook's version of "cute and funny" heels seems warped and sexualised.
But it is not just the company one must blame for such products finding their way into the market.
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| As the trends trickle down, the entire society seems plagued and diseased, fashionably. Photo: Pee Wee Pumps |
Pee Wee Pumps gave us a reason to outrage on social media this time. But don't we, as parents, give such companies the liberty to exist and thrive?
A newborn who barely knows little more than a mother's sense of touch and smell, who clings to the mother for feed, has no notion of fashion or its quirks.
Some parents, in a bid to outdo fellow-parents, dress their toddlers in high-end brands so they can make a style statement. For them, fashion is a top priority.
And, as the trends trickle down, the entire society seems plagued and diseased, fashionably.
If launching the pumps in themselves wasn't enough, their makers have crossed the threshold with their online campaign to market the footwear.
Overt sexualisation of baby girls is as cringe worthy as it is silly, but what is more appalling is the health hazard that the pumps overlook.
They are aware that a newborn does not walk around in shoes or heels - these, at best, mere accessories to make babies "look" like divas and fashionistas.
But what the company fails to understand is the unimaginable discomfort their pumps could bring to tiny, developing feet - even escalating into a health emergency.
Notwithstanding Pee Wee Pumps' bizarre product line and disgraceful campaign, I reserve my sentiments for parents who allowed their babies to be a part of the advertisements.
Objectifying newborns to define the new cool is infuriating.
When fashionable mothers make public appearances, with their infants cradled in arms, or settled into baby-strollers, they feel compelled to look a notch above the rest.
And, to achieve that, the mothers are in fact risking the health of their newborn.
The babies' hats, shoes, watches, scarfs and sunglasses are chosen to match their mothers'. However uncomfortable the accessory.
All for a little attention.
Hence, to crucify the market and companies alone for commodifying or sexualising a baby is misplaced.
Because, in pure economic terms, demand determines supply.
Walk into a birthday party and you see young girls increasingly dressing up like young women. It is the parents one should blame for burying childhood in fashion trends.
Babies may look adorable wearing multiple accessories, dressed as rockstars, fashion icons, extinct animals, what have you. I wonder why she/he wouldn't resist the freak show if they could talk.
Until we stop sexualising our own children and do better than watch them sway and dance to songs like "Chikni Chameli" and "Shape of You", we have little to complain about.