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Trendlet: Emoji clothing

Wearable emotions for tweens

Purse, Confetti & Friends, $14. All the emoji items are available at Down 2 Earth Kids, 418 Germantown Pike, Lafayette Hill, 610-941-3336.
Purse, Confetti & Friends, $14. All the emoji items are available at Down 2 Earth Kids, 418 Germantown Pike, Lafayette Hill, 610-941-3336.Read more

Look for beaming smiles on T-shirts, bracelets, headbands, towels, rings, and ankle socks to make the trek to overnight camp.

The trendlet

Emojis - yes, those omnipresent computer-generated grins - are sending an undeniable message of good vibes and high style this summer.

Where's it come from?

In 1999, Japanese developer Shigetaka Kurita developed the first emojis - Japanese for "picture characters" - as part of Unicode, a universal tech language that today allows us to read texts sent from iPhones to Androids.

Although the terms are used interchangeably, emojis are not emoticons, which are a combination of keystrokes - ;-) - that translate feeling. Emojis have a more graphic quality than keystrokes and look exactly like a winking happy face.

With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, texters got enough emoji power to convey a wide variety of feelings, from love (literally, in their eyes) to sadness to confusion. In 2011, Apple developers created a keypad for emojis.

Long before all that, the simple, universal happy face - two dots for eyes plus a smile - was stylized in the 1960s and began appearing on fashion shortly after.

Those smiley faces met the world of emoji in 2012 when Long Island apparel company Butter Super Soft introduced children's clothing with blinged-out emojis - humans and animals.

And 2015 has been a year of emoji advancements: Apple released racially diverse emojis in the spring and is developing ways to use emojis in place of passwords. This month, Apple announced new emojis, including a taco, a burrito, and a unicorn.

Who's wearing it?

Kids younger than 7 don't seem to appreciate emotional duds. And those older than 14 are just too cool to wear their feelings on their sleeves. But those in-betweeners can't resist. For the record, however, Gwen Stefani wore an emoji-patterned outfit at last year's The Voice party in Los Angeles.

Would Elizabeth wear it?

I'm all about texting emojis - especially the little wineglasses. But on my clothes? Well, not so much.

Should you wear it?

Only if you are - or feel like - getting in touch with your inner tween.

215-854-2704@ewellingtonphl

Pillow, Top Trenz, $20; purse, Confetti & Friends, $14; head wrap, Band-Hanna by Namedrops, $19. All available at Down 2 Earth Kids, 418 Germantown Pike, Lafayette Hill, 610-941-3336.