Designer Kids Clothes: Yay Or Nay?

Many women dream of having a child that looks just like them. After all, who wouldn’t want a little ‘mini me’ who looks, dresses, and acts exactly like them? However, some mothers are taking this trend to a whole new level by splashing out on thousands of pounds worth of high-end kids’ clothes.

Couture for kids is big business right now with tiny t-shirts setting you back a few hundred pounds. With Tom Cruise’s daughter Suri rapidly becoming a child style icon the amount of mothers snapping up kids clothes with big price tags has grown enormously.

The question is are these mothers just trying to make their children look good, or is spending hundreds of pounds on clothing your child will soon grow out of madness?

Who buys the clothes?

If designer clothing isn’t at the top of your list of priorities you might be wondering just who it is that buys these high end items for their children. Obviously a lot of wealthy parents are more than happy to flash their cash when it comes to dressing their children, but there are a lot of parents who haven’t got a big budget that still fork out for expensive outfits.

Stories of parents going without food or getting themselves into debt so they can dress their children in the latest fashions might seem mad, but psychologists have suggested reasons for this behaviour.

Psychologists claim that the parents who dress their kids in couture use the high price clothing as a status symbol, sending a message to the world that they are rich, or at least would like the world to think they’re rich.

Is it sending the wrong message to kids?

Until children are old enough to buy and choose their own clothes they are going to be a mirror of their parent’s tastes. This might mean wearing designer items, regardless of whether they’ll soon grow out of their clothes or simply wear them to roll around in the muddy park.

Some parents worry that buying these luxury items sends the wrong message to kids and makes them only interested in material goods rather than becoming a good person and useful member of society.

Ultimately to a child clothes are clothes, but as they grow older they’ll realise by interacting with their peers what fits in with the social norms and what doesn’t. Whether you dress them in designer togs or not they’ll soon realise the symbols of wealth and power.

What about the designers?

These savvy fashionistas have spotted a gap in the market and realised that parents will pay for children’s’ designer clothes. Everyone wants the best for their children and if that means going into triple digits for the right party dress then mothers will hand over the cash.

Big names including Gucci and Fendi are rolling out tiny versions of their adult catwalk collections so now parents really can dress their children in exactly the same outfits as they wear themselves.

So what do you think? Designer kids clothes, yay or nay?

Rob Rudd enjoys writing for several fashion and lifestyle websites. He is a father of three and lives in sunny Portsmouth on the south coast of England.

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