They might not all act as though they
were born with silver spoons in their mouths, but an increasing number of
babies are dressed like it. Just check the labels. Right now, the biggest
names in the business -- Armani, Versace, Christian Dior and Burberry -- are
crossing fashion's final frontier and designing baby and toddler clothing.
At trunk shows in New York and London, mothers can be seen ordering their
children's outfits months in advance, for next season's play-dates and
sleepovers. For special occasions, such as christenings, some babies are
showing up in custom-made gowns, which can retail for prices that are
exorbitant even by adult standards.
A toddler trench coat by Burberry will
probably elicit little more than a goo-goo from the tiny person wearing it.
Yet, trail-blazing mothers such as Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman and Madonna
have recently been spotted on shopping sprees for expensive baby clothes.
The Material Mom reportedly dressed her four-month old baby, Rocco, in a
$70,000 cream-coloured silk Versace gown for his christening, while her
four-year-old daughter, Lourdes, is said to have her own fashion stylist.
Sasha Charnin-Morrison, fashion market
director for Allure magazine and pregnant with twins, says that among a
certain social set, the children are often better dressed than their
mothers. "When actresses and celebrities are at a red-carpet event,
they are dressed up -- off duty, they are dressed down, and then it seems
like it's the kids who are dressed up."
Most of the really innovative children's
clothing comes from New York, and from Europe, where there are toddler
fashion shows such as the Pitti Bimbo show in Italy, which features models
baby-stepping down the runway. For mothers patronizing the trunk shows at
luxury hotels in New York City, it appears there are no limits when it comes
to outfitting their babies. "These are the customers who are willing to
pay a lot of money for kids' clothes, and they don't even ask how much it
is," says Nikki Kule, an American designer whose customers find out
about her trunk shows through their position on the New York society
grapevine.
With the new trends in baby clothing,
maternity has become a sexy and stylish affair. It has reached the point
where magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar are even featuring
mothers-with-child as cover fodder. In the fashion scene, says Robin Sackin,
the chairperson of the fashion merchandising department at New York's
Fashion Institute of Technology, "the kid has become like a fashion
accessory to the parent." High-end designers are catering to a new
market of professional women who are giving birth later in life. "Older
mothers have more discretionary income," says Sackin. "They're
giving their children everything. They are spoiling them rotten."
One development accounting for today's
well-dressed infants and toddlers is the increasing number of pint-sized
society events where dressed-up toddlers can really be shown off, says
jet-setting society mom Rena Sindi. In New York, Lenox Hill Hospital's
Fantasy Express, an event for toddlers and their parents is held at the
Plaza Hotel every spring, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the
hospital's neo-natal critical-care unit. High-end clothing stores such as
Burberry have been hosting special invitational events for upscale toddlers
as well, complete with such kiddie entertainments as ice-cream sundae-making
stations.
According to Sindi, children are capable
of learning about fashion at an early age. "Children definitely pick up
a sense of taste and style from their surroundings," says Sindi, who
favours classic children's clothes by companies such as Bonpoint and Anthea
Moore Ede of London. Even very little children often have their own ideas
about what they want to wear, she says. Despite the best efforts of their
mothers, once they can choose their own clothes, even the most elegantly
dressed infants might prefer to wear Old Navy.
While the psychological effects of
high-end clothing on children are uncertain, the pressures of being a
fashionable parent can certainly take their toll. "I had one mother who
was having a baby, and she wanted to have the baby on Monday so she could
make it to the trunk show on Tuesday," says Kule. "She literally
came from the hospital. Her face was all swollen and the milk was coming out
of her shirt -- we were laughing."
An interesting corollary of dressing
babies and toddlers in designer fashions is that the children appear to have
more clothing options than their mothers do. Infants can either be dressed
as traditional toddlers or as little adults, with the result that, whatever
the reigning adult fashions are this coming season, you are certain to find
a miniature version of similar quality. For example, for ages one to four,
the Fall 2002 line of the Italian company Varci includes a boy's brown
velvet pinstriped suit with mustard contrast-stitch tie, at US$260. In
shopping for hip baby girls, the possibilities are endless. The peasant or
gypsy themes evident in the adult Versace Spring 2002 collection can also be
found in the company's infant line. The fashion staple denim also shows up
often, as in Verde Mela's denim-coloured pleather jacket with a detachable
fur collar for girls ages one to four, about US$450. There are also trendy
infant accessories such as pink-lensed aviator sunglasses by Christian Dior.
While not quite on a par with the New
York society mom or the Sloane Ranger mummy, many upscale Canadian mothers
are outfitting their children more extravagantly as well. It is not uncommon
to find off-the-rack designer baby dresses and outfits costing up to $800 at
high-end Canadian stores such as Pom' Canelle in Montreal and Growing Pains
in Toronto.
But, many affluent Canadian mothers, even
the ones who wear Donna Karan and Gucci, are still conservative when it
comes to shopping for their children. "I steer clear of clothes that
look like what an adult or a teenager would wear," says Susan Richards
de Witt, a mother from Vancouver who is partial to cute, colourful imports
with labels such as Oilily and the Danish company Jackpot. But dressing your
child in traditional toddler clothing is in no way limiting, says Richards
de Witt, who began amassing a wardrobe of baby clothes 17 years before she
gave birth.
In a search for unique and traditional
baby fashions, some Canadian mothers are buying made-to-measure clothing,
such as the designs Rene Watt has created for her company, Haute Baby. The
Vancouver-based Watt creates made-to-measure baby clothing featuring
hand-smocking, a distinctive style that dates back to the Middle Ages.
According to Watt, there was a time when
many Canadian women were capable of hand-smocking their own baby clothing.
It was a skill they learned in home-economics class. But the technique,
which involves hand-embroidering patterns over pleated woven fabrics,
largely died out after the women's liberation movement in the mid-'60s.
A great deal of traditional baby clothing
today is machine smocked. But there is simply no comparison between a
high-end hand-smocked garment and a machine-made one, says Watt. Not only
does a machine-smocked garment look cheaper; it is also more rigid because
the machine sews directly across the pleats, flattening them out. With a
hand-smocked garment, the embroidery is sewn on in an intricate manner,
resulting in a much more flexible garment.
Watt says that part of her motive for
creating such garments is the comfort of the infant. "It's no wonder
that some babies cry through the whole [baptismal] ceremony when they have
scratchy lace around their necks," says Watt, who uses fabrics such as
Swiss voile and batiste for her couture christening gowns, which sell for up
to $6,000. "Most of those laces are 100% polyester."
While mothers are ultimately the arbiters
of infant and toddler fashions, there are indications that fathers are
beginning to play a more prominent role, especially when the baby happens to
be male. It used to be that there was an element of femininity to baby
clothes. Often, infants of both sexes were dressed in gowns, and the custom
persisted until recently at baby christenings. But these days, many fathers
are refusing to allow their sons to wear baby dresses. There is a growing
trend toward outfitting baby boys in shorts-and-shirt ensembles for their
christenings.
In general, though, it appers fathers
don't share their spouses' enthusiasm for baby clothes. Several affluent
mothers interviewed refused to divulge exactly how much they spend annually
on their infants' wardrobes, saying they were concerned about what their
husbands might think.
There's further proof that baby clothes
might be the ultimate arena for style-conscious shopping-happy moms.
Children continually grow out of their clothes, providing the perfect excuse
for their mothers to buy something new. According to Lynda Johnson, the
style director of Children's Business Magazine, and a long-time observer of
toddler trends, "Kids' fashion is probably one of the most
recession-proof areas because kids constantly grow. You cannot force their
foot into the shoe they were wearing last year."
- Alex Ulam
Saturday
Post
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