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Pre-teen girls ignore Hilary Duff's fashion picks

Posted on: Monday, 7 August 2006, 09:13 CDT

By Chelsea Emery

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Singers Hilary Duff and Jessica Simpson may have infiltrated closets, shoe trees and bathrooms with their names emblazoned on apparel or perfume, but there's one place celebrities are not having much of an effect -- the closets of pre-teen girls, according to a survey to be released on Monday.

Despite media saturation of bold-faced names, girls between the ages of 9 and 14 scrutinize clothing catalogs or school peers for dressing cues, rather than MTV or entertainment shows, according to a Tween Brands Inc. July survey of 400 girls.

"A year ago, when I was 13, I didn't look at celebrities," said Kelly Collazos, a Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, student. "I would look at magazines or catalogs and say, 'I have a shirt like that, I'll put it together that way."'

These findings have an impact on how companies spend their tightly watched advertising dollars. Whether they pay a celebrity to promote their products or focus instead on a so-called catazine that shows clothing and styles in a magazine-style format, can mean the difference of millions of dollars.

So Tween Brands, which runs the Justice and Limited Too clothing chains for pre-teen girls, instead puts its cash into more than 18 million catalogs a year. The books feature fresh-faced models, instead of celebrities.

Only 12 percent of girls ages 9 to 14 look to movie or rock stars for fashion inspiration, according to the survey, instead looking to models in magazines or catalogs, their mothers or their friends.

But what happens during those critical high school years?

Said Kelly, who starts high school in September: "I like Paris Hilton."

And when she saw rock band Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz wearing a cool belt in an MTV video, she went to Hot Topic and bought a similar item.

"Now we look at music videos," she said. "It's all about the music."

Source: REUTERS

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