Rated PG

Children, poets say, come into the world pure. Unfortunately, they don’t stay uncorrupted long. Soon they crave teeth-rotting cereals advertised on television, repeat naughty words overheard in the playground and even become walking billboards for designer logos. So much for the age of innocence.

The expansion of designer labels into the children’s market could be proof that little consumers are as status conscious as their elders. Names like Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Donna Karan are prominent in toddler to teenage departments.

Are children by nature name-droppers, or can parents be blamed for foisting clothes that appeal to them on their kids? A little of both, says Richard Hauser, vice president of Bloomingdale’s.

“Ralph Lauren’s infants’ and toddlers’ things are adorable--it isn’t just the label. The designer children’s clothes that sell well are very cute. DKNY stuff for girls is the best designed kids’ clothes I’ve seen--superbly made and appropriate for kids.”

Today, Hauser says, kids everywhere watch the same TV programs and see the same videos, “so there aren’t real regional differences” in dress. And, he says, “Even little girls like DKNY, clothes that are very urban and sophisticated. Up to a point, they want to look like their big sisters.”

Big girls bent on the serious work of studying math, history and literature will look more like laborers ready for welding and dry-walling when they return to school wearing painter’s pants, overalls and rough denim janitor’s jackets.

Retro-inspired looks continue, especially flared pants that look suspiciously like bell-bottoms. First, the kids laugh at their parents’ old pictures in the family album. Then they dress up just like them.