Yesterday I saw a beautiful dress. It was a lilac-grey jumper dress with bands of lace. It’s very on-trend and would probably suit me. Normally if I really liked an item I would ask the wearer where she got it, but in this case the wearer was my one-year-old niece. Even if she was able to tell me what shop it was from, they probably wouldn’t do it in my size.
I am not the only one who has noticed the astonishing change in baby clothes since I was a baby myself. I don’t actually remember what I wore as a baby, of course, but going by things I remember wearing as a small child – hand-knitted jumpers and cardigans, dungarees, endless hand-me-downs – I don’t think that I was being wheeled around in my pram in brand-name jeans.
These days kids have a much bigger range of clothes to choose from, although they are not usually the ones doing the choosing. It’s not just my niece. The new pastor’s son (aged one) looks the epitome of cool in his jeans and hoodies, while my nephew (also aged one) could easily swap clothes with my husband (not aged one) without anyone noticing anything amiss, apart from the difference in size. (Truth be told, there’s not that much difference in size, actually; my nephew is huge for his age.) I’ve even seen a tiny girl on the train with a top-end brand-name scarf (I think it was Prada), which just seems silly. Surely Asda tastes just as good as Prada?
It’s easy to disapprove of the money wasted on these clothes, particularly the expensive brands, when the kids will only grow out of them, but while there’s logic in this, I think there’s also a bit of jealousy. “We had to wear scratchy, hand-me-down woolens, how come they get Next dresses with cute stripy tights? Let them suffer too!” Not a very attractive, or very fair attitude. Some of the new baby clothes aren’t any more expensive than the ones we wore, anyway, it’s just that manufacturers make them in line with adult fashions now, which for some reason they never used to. And a major point in their favour is how cute the kids look in them. Grown women squeal and sigh over my niece’s wardrobe, and how adorable it makes her look. (Not that she wouldn’t look adorable anyway. She is related to me, after all.;))
On balance I think I like the trend for trendy tots. Their baby photos will be less embarrassing to them in the future, and in the meantime it’s fun to dress them nicely. There’s just one thing that would make my approval complete: an enlarging machine, like on Honey I Blew Up the Baby, so I can have the lacy dress when my niece has finished with it.
K C Murdarasi 
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