When she stepped off her flight at LAX, she was ready for the swarms of paparazzi in her casual, flat Gucci boots and scarf. Oh, and 5-year-old Valentina’s mom, Salma Hayek, looked pretty good, too.
These days, we’re more likely to see a celebrity kid in Oscar de la Renta than OshKosh B’gosh, and it’s all thanks to Suri Cruise.
Eyebrows were raised at the price tags on the Armani dresses Katie Holmes was putting on her baby daughter in 2006, but since then, the high-end children’s fashion market has exploded.
“It began with the massive amount of pictures we saw of Suri,” says Us Weekly fashion editor Sasha Charnin Morrison.
“It definitely sparked an interest for designers to see these kids who are very aware of how their parents dress and dress in high-end labels themselves.”
Roger Vivier didn’t have a children’s line when he made his first pair of custom, ruby-red flats for Suri in 2008. Soon after she was photographed wearing them around Manhattan, he announced he was starting one. In 2011, Gucci launched its first children’s line with Jennifer Lopez’s then-2-year-old twins, Emme and Max, in the ad campaign. And Oscar de la Renta, Phillip Lim, Marc Jacobs and Roberto Cavalli have all recently gotten into the kids game.
These designers know the value of the publicity they are getting from high-profile tots.
Fashion journalists received a media alert when 7-year-old Violet Affleck was photographed in one of Oscar de la Renta’s dresses while shopping at a flea market with her famous dad last week.
And after Romeo Beckham, the 10-year-old son of David and Victoria Beckham, was named one of GQ’s 50 most stylish men in Britain (at age 8!), Burberry signed him for its spring/summer 2013 ad campaign.
In 2012, sales of children’s apparel grew nearly twice as much as women’s apparel, according to market-research firm NPD.
Some designers are taking the children’s luxury market one step further: Dolce & Gabbana just released an alcohol-free fragrance for babies priced at $45 per bottle — joining Burberry’s Baby Touch and Bvlgari’s Petits et Mamans (for babies and their moms).
Alissa Emerson, the co-founder and creative director of the Upper East Side high-end children’s boutique Little Edit, says that her customers are inspired by the fashion of celebrity kids.
“Customers will come in and say, ‘This is so cute, it looks like something one of the Hollywood children would wear.’ Suri is definitely still mentioned the most,” she says.
“The difference [in children’s fashion] is amazing pre-Suri Cruise and post-Suri Cruise.”
This pricey trend may just be getting started.
“Once we get our July babies, it’s going to just be craziness,” Morrison says. “We’ve got Kim Kardashian, Kate Middleton and Jessica Simpson’s second. Everybody will be really trying to get pictures when those babies are finally out, dressed and walking.”
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