Life & Style | Parenting
Big designs for Pint Size
US companies are cashing in on parents' obsession to dress their children in miniature versions of clothes for adults
- By Emili Vesilind, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
- Published: 23:58 August 15, 2008
- Affected by celebrity-kids mania, the children's clothes market is witnessing a boom
- Image Credit: Supplied photo
When Samantha Meiler shops for her son, she has a very specific look in mind: designer jeans, velour track suits, L.A.M.B sneakers, a sporty-urban vibe.
“My son's style is very Kingston,'' she says, referring to Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale's boy. “I make no qualms about it. I see pictures of Kingston and I say: ‘I want that outfit for my son.'''
Of course, little Rossdale is still a toddler, and Meiler's son is just 21 months old. But they're part of a growing set of pint-sized fashion plates, wearing shrunken-down versions of trendy adult clothes.
In the past few years, the obsession with dressing kids like Dogtown skaters, Malibu mums and even Upper East Side socialites has hit a new, Suri-high level.
Lilliputian renditions
More clothing companies than ever are producing what the rag trade refers to as mini-me clothes on every price level.
Marquee American designers such as Phillip Lim and Marc Jacobs are turning out Lilliputian renditions of clothes that sail down the runway.
European design houses that have a long tradition of producing children's clothes are paying more attention to their kidswear lines.
Instead of just churning out jumpers in Burberry checks or Missoni waves, they're making children's clothes that look like grown-up togs in teeny-tiny sizes. So, naturally, the fast-fashion folk have followed suit: H&M and Zara are turning out mini-me looks for kids of all sizes.
Lim's new collection for girls, Kid by Phillip Lim, mirrors his ready-to-wear line almost down to the pleat.
“It's the first time a line has been so literally inspired by the adult collection,'' says Tracy Edwards, a vice-president at Barneys New York, which carries the collection. “It's fresh and so up to date with what was happening in adult fashion,'' she adds.
Specific aesthetic
For fall, Lim is offering structural pea coats, tunic dresses with massive bows, pleated and cuffed shorts and belted sweaters, for $55 to $325 (Dh202 to Dh1,194).
“With this generation of new-age baby-boomers, even though they have a kid now, they still have a specific aesthetic,'' Lim says, “and it relates to their whole life — the type of car they drive, the shoes they wear.
“I was thinking that when they dress their child, they want something tasteful, something fun and interesting.''
Lisa Kline, who owns four boutiques and one kids' store, said sales at her kids' store are outpacing the others.
Kline added that her sales staff use the mania about celebrity kids as a selling tool, pointing out which Kingsley shirt Maddox Jolie-Pitt was recently seen in. “People care about that stuff,'' she says.
The media coverage has “just created a bigger push and demand for shrunken-down adult clothing'', said Serge Azria, designer for contemporary women's line Joie, which recently debuted kids' and tween collections that sell at Barneys New York and Lisa Kline Kids.
The Suri effect
These tots might not be moving $3,000 (Dh11,019) Balenciaga bags but after Tom Cruise's chubby-cheeked daughter Suri, who was recently fitted for a pair of custom Christian Louboutin shoes, was seen in a belted Burberry dress, the house's signature nova check plaid started popping up on kids all over Los Angeles.
Eugenia Ulasewicz, president of Burberry in the Americas, couldn't gauge the Suri effect but overall characterises kids' sales as “very strong''.
And it might be naive to think that Suri and her pocket-sized pals, including the Beckham boys, aren't at least partially responsible.
After decades of licensing out its children's lines, Burberry is progressively bringing these collections in-house.
“Where we did have children's clothes, we saw there was a real customer appetite for our product,'' Ulasewicz says.
But what rational person pays $180 (Dh661) for a Burberry shirtdress or $150 (Dh551) for a Little Marc swing coat for a human being still working out how to twist the cap on a bottle?
Ali Froley, a mother of two who runs the Los Angeles office of the public relations company Bismarck Phillips Communications & Media, said buying expensive clothes that mimic adult fashion “is a waste of money and I think it's weird. It's freaky when mums have mini-mes running around.''
Living out fantasies
But for parents accustomed to keeping up with the Joneses, dressing their 4-year-olds in Tod's loafers and Chloe dresses is just another way to assert their style and affluence.
Also, kitting out your kids in designer duds is far cheaper than swathing yourself in Chloe.
“You can live out your fashion fantasies through your kids,'' says Meiler, who dissects duds worn by Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, Violet Affleck and other celebrity offspring for Life & Style.
“I don't look like her and nothing I put on is going to make me look like Gwen Stefani. But with kids, people can show their personalities,'' she says.
Splurge on tots
While women's national apparel sales have followed the economy downwards, kids' clothing sales have dipped less profoundly, according to the US-based retail research company, NDP Group.
And sales for infant-toddler clothes are the only clothing sector that's significantly up, from $14.7m (Dh54m) in March and April 2007 to $15.3m (Dh56m) in the same period this year.
At Pumpkinheads in Los Angeles, which stocks diminutive True Religion and J Brand jeans, sales are up by 12 per cent this year.
“I think the luxury market is almost unaffected by the economy,'' owner Jamara Ghalayini says. “Also, with the petrol prices and the economy, it seems like people are travelling less so have more money to spend on their kids''.
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