Unless you've shopped for baby or toddler clothes lately, you're probably unaware of the growing frustration that many women face. After all, we take pride in our appearance and are careful to select quality clothing and accessories. Even if we don't completely revamp our wardrobes each season, we keep our fingers on the pulse of fashion trends and do our best to create our own personal styles with a combination of timeless classics and seasonal pieces.
Although it's easy to find both classic and trendy styles in women's clothing, the same can't be said for children's clothing. Although children's designers and manufacturers create a wide variety of traditional, whimsical, and fun clothes for infants and toddlers, you wouldn't know it from shopping at most retail stores. Instead of superior fabrics that wear well, most retail children's clothing is made from fabrications that simply don't hold up. Likewise, the craftsmanship in most retail children's clothing is sorely lacking. Simply put, when you go shopping for children's clothes, it's hard to find a store that carries higher end clothing.
Thank goodness for the Internet! After experiencing so much frustration in shopping in retail stores for high-end infant and toddler clothes, I finally managed to find quality, a fair price point, and style through an online children's clothing boutique. It was absolutely refreshing to find classic styles made in whimsical patterns and colors and a selection that was so clearly superior to what I saw in stores.
The styles that I most adored (for both my children and as gifts for friends' baby showers) were smocked baby clothes and smocked dresses. The hand smocking by Remember Nguyen, Vive La Fete, and Anavini was exquisite. The Vive La Fete bloomers were perfect for any time of the year - one had an adorable ladybug, another had a Christmas tree, and a third had a toy parade.
I also loved the bright colors from Mulberry Street. Their fine wale corduroy royal blue jumper was perfectly accented with Kelly green polka dot ribbon at the hem and the straps. And the Mulberry Street poodle sweater was adorable in fuchsia, and was even cuter because the front of the sweater featured the face of the poodle while the back of the sweater was adorned by the back of the poodle.
A friend of mine had twins (a boy and a girl), and I loved the fact that I could find brother and sister outfits. I discovered gorgeous green long sleeve smocked dresses adorned with apples by Le Cirque, along with matching Longalls. Adorable!
Aside from well-known, quality brands like Peaches 'n Cream and Le Top, I really appreciated that the children's clothing boutique offered a monogram on many of the items they carried. The smocked baby clothes that I ordered, each of which had a monogram, absolutely delighted my friend.
It's reassuring to know that high quality, fashionable baby and toddler clothes are available - you just have to know where to look!