It's Cool: Pacifiers For Teens Are Hot

ORLANDO, Fla. - It hangs demurely at the end of a necklace around Janina Vargas' neck, this clear little piece of plastic. Its shape is familiar to anyone who has made it through infancy.

It's a pacifier.

Which would seem to be no big deal, except that Janina Vargas is 17 years old.

Vikki Veit, 14, has one around her neck, too - a big blue one that she wears to school. It's actually her second. Her first one was taken away from her by her teacher at Lyman High School in Longwood, Fla. Veit was sucking on it in class.

"It's a basic trend," says Jon Harper, 11, who goes to Milwee Middle School in Longwood. And even though most kids are paying somewhere around $5 for the honor of participating in this trend, Harper says there's a cheaper way to get hip: "If you have a little brother, you can use his."

For those who have no infant siblings to steal cool things from, several stores are carrying pacifiers, including Spencer's Gifts. Spencer's offers not just necklaces, but pacifier-shaped key chains and earrings in a variety of colors at its 475 stores nationwide.

The chain, based in Pleasantville, N.J., says sales are great. The merchandise has been at the stores for about a month and in the week before Christmas, sales doubled, says Susan Douglas, a buyer for the store.

Douglas says she's not sure she knows exactly what the appeal is, except that kids remember a pacifier as being "a good thing."

"I think it's harmless," she says. "It's not like piercing your belly button or anything like that."

Explanations vary as to where the trend originated. Douglas and others say it began in Europe and is spreading to the United States. Others say Flavor Flav, a member of the rap group Public Enemy, wore one in a video. Still others attribute its origin to a character in the movie "Boyz N the Hood."

Whatever the reason, the trend is getting pacifiers into the hands of adults who have no plans on jamming them in an infant's mouth. In fact, two adult women separately walked into Many Moons, a store in downtown Orlando, Fla., and told a clerk, "Hmm, I know a couple of guys I'd like to give that to."

The pacifiers come in a variety of materials, colors and sizes. Most are a translucent plastic, although some Italian models going for $18 are made of a ceramic-like material and decorated with rhinestones.

Not everybody selling them quite understands the phenomenon. Terri Himes, a sales clerk at Jacobson's in Longwood, says she has sold all but one on display at her counter in the juniors department.

In case all this seems like a horrible joke perpetrated by some Fashion Sadists on an unsuspecting public, there's more. Some real pacifiers have been modified to humiliate the babies sucking on them. Instead of the standard ring at the end, the pacifier is capped with a giant pair of lips - making the poor child look like the offspring of Mick Jagger.

"Pacifiers with character!" says the label on what are called Pacifaces. "Fun for baby and the whole family!"

Fun, that is, until the rest of the family starts fighting over who gets to wear it.