The insightful article also explored the world of Instagram baby swag moms who outfit their children in fashionable chic clothing, and get famous doing so.
We’ve blogged about that trendy phenomena too as discussed before here.
Still, it was great to see the piece quoted an author who validated a concern I have with those baby swag Tumblr and IG pages:
In Kids and Branding in a Digital World, published last year the media theorist Barrie Gunter argues that the success of designer diffusion lines “play[s] on the idea that parents are the source of earliest social learning for their kids,” thereby encouraging parents to project their own brand valuations onto their children. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as Gunter hypothesized, unless children become “overly sensitised to a need to be seen as trendy and fashionable and where self-identity is centrally defined in terms of commercial brand associations.”
One small correction: The Fader piece states that luxury brands started getting into the children’s market beginning in 2010. But on the contrary, beginning in 2008, we began posting a biennial most expensive baby clothes list and Gucci, Chanel and Dior were on it back then too.
Big brands been in the rich babies game.
I did appreciate the inclusion of Australian-based designer Winnie Aoki who dresses Blue Ivy and other celebrity kids in her 5-figure costing originals that each take 300 hours for Aoki to complete.
Aoki, the site pens, was
responsible for the $2,000 dress Blue Ivy wore to her grandmother’s birthday, specializes in kid couture. Aoki crafts dresses from confectionery layers of tulle, sequins, and luxury fabrics under the label Mischka Aoki, named after her own 8-year-old daughter. The dresses, which can take up to 300 hours to craft, frequently come with five-digit price tags. According to her website, Aoki started the brand after she realized there weren’t any clothing options “good enough for her daughter”; for her, “clothes represent style and luxury at the same time.” While it may have been difficult to locate high-end designer clothing for children in 2008, when Mischka was born, the line’s explosive popularity — Aoki has dressed not just Blue Ivy, but North, Penelope Disick, and Suri — is an indicator of the steadily increasing desirability of luxury children’s wear.
It was a well written and researched article. You should check it out here!
