Britney Brigade

Rachel Martin's present for her ninth birthday came wrapped in silver spandex. The 5-ft.7-in. gift walked in on a red carpet, stripped off her floor-length black coat to reveal silver hip huggers and a matching tube top and sang, "I think I did it again/I made you believe..." And for a few wondrous moments, Rachel and her 10 girlfriends did believe that Britney Spears was in the house, lip-synching in front of the marble fireplace and rocking chair in Rachel's North Salem, N.Y., living room. On this recent Saturday, Shannon Connor, 21, an impersonator in hot demand at birthday parties throughout the New York City area, chose one of her more modest costumes, opting against what she refers to as the "nude outfit." She explains, "I think it would be too much for the families."

Indeed, it was just such a getup--the infamously skimpy outfit Britney wore at last September's MTV Video Music Awards--that confirmed the star's transformation from perky ingenue to pop tart. In 1999, Britney was a former Mouseketeer with a No. 1 album,...Baby, One More Time. By the time she released her second album last spring, Oops!...I Did It Again, she had grown up, gaining breasts (by what means remains unclear) and losing all inhibition. Britney, 19, who was just co-host at the American Music Awards, is scheduled to start shooting a movie in March and may soon record a duet with her newest admirer, Madonna. And while continuing to promote her wholesome attitudes (yes, she insisted this month, she's still a virgin), she is enticing a legion of young fans into a world that is anything but G-rated.

Britney's impact is everywhere--in the tube tops, hip huggers and glitter makeup that girls ranging from just past toddler to barely into their teens are snapping up at stores like the Limited Too and GapKids. Girls who only a moment ago played with Barbie now play at being Britney. "Walk around any shopping mall, and you'll see mirror images of her all over the place," says Larry Flick, an editor at the music trade magazine Billboard. Some schools are cracking down on the lookalikes, stiffening dress codes to stamp out racy attire. Parents, for their part, are rolling their eyes and trying to walk the line between fashion and fascism.

"I like wearing shorts and skirts that show my stomach," says Tonya Rodriguez, an eighth-grader at Seven Springs Middle School in New Port Richey, Fla. "I have a really flat stomach, and I like it." Her principal, Roni Sushko, isn't quite so charmed. She has cited Tonya, 13, for dress-code violations eight times since the beginning of the school year, suspending her on two of those occasions. Tonya's infractions include wearing miniskirts and spaghetti-strap tops, which run afoul of regulations that the school's county instituted last year. The new code specifies that all skirts and shorts must fall no higher than 4 in. above the knee, and shirts must be tucked in. "When one of our teenagers comes in looking like Britney Spears, they carry with them an attitude," says Sushko, who began the year by issuing as many as 40 citations a day for inappropriate dress. Tonya's mother Michelle Steed thinks the school's approach is draconian. "Tonya is making an attempt to go to school, and it's like they are trying to deter her by checking her every day," she says.

The Britney effect is helping fuel a resurgence of school dress codes across the country. In Chicago, where 80% of the public schools have uniforms, Assistant Principal Anastasia Halicki patrols the halls of Stephen F. Gale Elementary School to ensure that skirts don't rise higher than two finger widths above the knee. The majority of girls, of course, know better than to wear their most risque clothes to school. Tube tops are forbidden at Oliver McCracken Middle School in Skokie, Ill., but Sarah Roberts, 11, wears hip huggers and skimpy T shirts on the weekend. Even in the dead of winter, a bulky sweater simply won't do. "Boys just notice if skin is showing," she explains, adding that fourth-grade boys line their lockers with posters of Britney.

"We compare ourselves to Britney," Sarah says, "and most of the time it makes us feel bad because we don't match up." She recalls that the pressure to look good began in fourth grade, when a lot of her peers started worrying about their weight. Now a sixth-grader, Sarah has a formidable collection of lip gloss, nail polish and eye glitter (the only makeup her mother allows her to wear). Yet even she believes there should be limits: she would never wear some of Britney's more daring attire, she says, because "there's a difference between looking cool and looking like a slut."

Mothers who try to control the closet rarely agree with their daughters on what that difference is. Mindful of her own teenage years, spent in halters and hot pants, Sandy Swenson struggles to find tasteful outfits that pass the cool bar for her daughter Kate, 14. But the Houston mother admits she prefers at times to retreat rather than fight over wardrobe. Shavetta McWhorter, a mother of two girls in Canton, Ga., takes a harder line. "I basically tell Asa, 12, 'You have two choices: you can dress like a young lady, or you can dress like a hoochie,'" she says, making clear that since she bankrolls the clothes, the option is purely rhetorical. McWhorter has a tougher time shopping for Jasmine, 7. "It's practically impossible to keep her in clothes that cover her up," she says. "The stores have the same things in her size as they do for Asa--down to the thong bathing suits, even the lingerie. In little-girl sizes, they've got the thigh-high panties and padded bras."