1st
QC Preflight Point
5
5
THE BABY DOLL the baby doll dress has a high waist and full short skirt, and is often embellished with bows or lace trim, especially at the waist. It is sleeveless or has short sleeves (in extreme examples, it has short puffed sleeves), a deep scooped neck, and occasionally a Peter Pan collar. The Baby Doll dress appears to best advantage in white or light colors, especially pink, blue, lavender, and yellow, although it may be color-blocked with a black bodice. The purpose of the Baby Doll dress is to look infantilized and sexualized at the same time: the focus on the breasts and legs, while obscuring the waist, makes the wearer look younger, the size of the breasts notwithstanding. The technical term for this is pedomorphism (yep, that sounds terrible, doesn’t it?), “the retention by the adult organism of infantile or juvenile characteristics.” One of the “juvenile characteristics” that the Baby Doll dress emphasizes is having legs longer than your arms; by hiding the waist, the Baby Doll exaggerates the length of the legs.
ACCESSORIES: Mary Janes, a small top-handled handbag or a clutch, shiny lip gloss, copious false eyelashes, the propensity to call unrelated grown men “Daddy.”
REL AT E D : The Classic Party Dress, the Artist’s Smock. WOR N BY: Twiggy, Zooey Deschanel, Kate Middleton.
-- the baby doll --
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