Du musée à la thèse : vers un modèle d’étude du vêtement de l’enfant

Children education consists in the socialisation of little people who, in constant interdependence with the adult, have to be brought into history and imbued with the habits defining our ethnicity. Through the analysis of the capacity of Fashion to dress the identities, this research approaches clothing as an education tool in the hands of the adults. In parallel, as a technical handling kit, a set of sensations and an object of desire, clothing is an adoptable system by the child. In order to avoid an adult focus, this article looks at the deconstruction of this socialisation process by analysing the appropriation of fashion by children. Therefore, this study of children’s clothing provides another approach to Childhood History and shows the essential contribution of the study of the Material Culture to a Childhood Sociology, source of knowledge of the mechanisms of our society.