This just doesn’t feel fair, but I’ll post it anyway. Hot on the heels of Jean sending me that behind-the-scenes video from French kids’ fashion mag Milk, she left a copy of Maria magazine lying around at home. It’s from Japan, and well, just have a look at what it contains:
Now, look. Those kids are cute—really cute. And their outfits, I mean, I wish I could dress that well. And of course, this is Japan. But…
How cute is too cute? If you’ve got tons of cash to burn, fine, spend whatever you want on your child, suit them in outfits that come from abroad and cost hundreds of euros (or tens of thousands of yen). But for the rest of us, how much thought and money needs to go into selecting duds that will inevitably end up crusted with snot, yogurt, vomit, and other fluids of questionable origin (or never get worn because they are too nice)?
At our home, I have to admit, a lot of thought goes into this, and with fairly good reason. My wife is a fashion designer. How you dress, adult or a baby, means a lot to her. And so Sasha is usually pretty good-looking, even when she’s wearing head-to-toe sweats. (Those sweats are French, circa 1984, and once belonged to my little sister, Nell.) We get comments from time to time about her clothes, and yes, I admit, we feel a bit of pride.
That’s because we have a dirty little secret. While some of Sasha’s clothes are high-class vintage, or were bought by me as gifts from my trips abroad, most of her wardrobe comes from… Gap. Yes, Gap. Their kids’ clothes are great, colorful and fun and easy to wash and affordable.
Most important, they let kids look like kids, and not Franco-Japanese hipsters. After all, that’s a look I’m reserving for myself.
While I wouldn’t shop there for myself I was surprised to learn that H&M has great kids clothes. A little more fashion-forward than the Gap and cheap too. They’ve held up well enough to be passed along as hand-me-downs.
The best thing about H&M is that their designers actually used some imagination when developing their boys outfits. Like most places the girls’ stuff is super adorable and cute, but so is the boys stuff, and this is very rare in the US. Their prices are generally cheaper than GAP full prices. Although, GAP sale prices generally beat H&M.
We’ve used a lot of Old Navy stuff. Some time later I found out a fashion designer I used to work with now works for ON doing their baby and toddler lines!
Check out Bit’z Kids (bitzkidsnyc.com) on the UWS. It’s as bonkers as you would expect a Japanese kids clothing store to be. Or I mean, Bonker’z!