“Chin up, chin up. And walk fast. If you don’t walk fast, the show will be over before you reach the end of the ramp.” These were the tips given to Omana Barooah Pisharoty when she was walking the ramp for the first time. Though Omana did well at the show it will be at least another 15 years before she can make it as a model. Omana is four and the show was held at her play school.

Walk down any aisle at a high-end department store and you will find younger and younger fashionistas. The kids’ section at Shopper’s Stop in Delhi is a labyrinth of aisles spilling with pink sequins, satin ribbons, trendy logos, strappy dresses and even accessories. It is almost like stumbling into a twilight zone of adult and kiddy sizes.

If you thought your 13-year-old was the only fashion victim in town, think again because the average age of such victims has just gone lower. Five-year-old Siya surprised her mother recently when she asked for a pair of large and gaudy hair-clips to take with her to school. “Your teacher doesn’t allow you to wear those,” the mother demurred. “No, but I am going to wear them as earrings and play ‘fashion-fashion’ with my friends in the school bus,” Siya replied.

Fashion shows on television are taking their toll on tots, aided and abetted by a booming and aggressive children’s apparel market. Not surprisingly, boys and girls in the 4-8 age group are not just deciding on what they have to wear, but what should go with it.

Four-year-old Nivedita only likes skirts with pockets and she refuses to wear shoes with skirts. Nivedita’s mother, Sumita Verma, a Delhi home-maker, adds that she has to take her daughter’s opinion when they go dress shopping. A developed style quotient at the tender ages of three and four might have been unheard of about a decade ago when hand-me-downs ruled as far as fashion went. But now, it is the norm. “She is aware of what she wears. For instance, she doesn’t like shorts but likes skirts and trousers. She has a choice and she would like it to be respected,” journalist Sangeeta Barooah, Omana’s mother, adds laughingly.

NOT SURPRISINGLY, THE kidswear market in India is estimated almost at Rs 14,000 crore, which is about 15 per cent of the total apparel market. The children’s clothes and uniforms segment grew at 14.8 per cent in value terms and 4.9 per cent in volumes in 2005.

Laugh or cringe you might at the notion of tiny tots with a discerning taste in fashion but fashion doesn’t come cheap. On an average, a branded dress for a three to five year old comes at a whopping Rs 1,000, while other tops come for anything between Rs 400 and Rs 600. But the business of kidswear doesn’t stop at clothes. Chic stores such as Benetton and Giny & Jony reserve space for hundreds of accessories. Whoever said, “Whenever in doubt, accessorise”, knew exactly where to hit. From beach flip-flops to buckled belts and fishermen hats, there is nothing you can’t find in a size extra small.

Barooah had to shell out a meaty Rs 1,200 for the evening gown she bought for Omana’s fashion show. “It was a hideously expensive strappy little thing from South Extension and I had to buy her boots to go with it too, which came for another Rs 550,” says Barooah. Straps and boots apart, Barooah also had to fish out clip-on earrings and bangles.

EARRINGS MIGHT BE out for boys but style is definitely not. Four-year-old Avik Sarkar Basu turned up his nose at the trouser and T-shirt set his mother had chosen for him for a wedding. “He picked out a new churidar kurta set for himself and rejected what we had chosen,” says his mother, Rashmi Sarkar, a Delhi dermatologist. While for girls, pink is the new black, boys prefer bright colours and trendy logos. Girls also seem more “with it” than the boys. While Nivedita agonises over her skinny frame and hairy arms, Verma says that you can make her seven-year-old son wear a sack and he wouldn’t know.

But how does a four-year-old know what is a sack and what’s not? Most parents agree that kids find their fashion sense in older boys and girls but some also credit it to films and television. Cute boys and girls have been ruling Bollywood right from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to the recent release, Cheeni Kum, which had a little girl called Sexy.

Some people still believe that children should be seen and not heard — but seen preferably on ramps. A petite little girl walked down the catwalk in a flowery pink halter top and an equally cute tiny skirt at the launch of the kids’ collection of an international clothing line in Calcutta. Fashion shows for children are a regular at department stores. And some even get page-three coverage.

But Barooah doesn’t think the new generation is to blame. “We give them more leeway. We give them the choice,” she says. “Our mothers knew how to stitch frocks and dresses but we don’t have the time. Now I am waiting for the day my daughter grows up and asks me for a pair of Levi’s jeans.”

That is, unless Levi’s starts a new line for tiny tots before that.