Big name designers are coming out with more and more collections targeting kids -- complete with big-ticket prices. Though the designer clothes for kids are undoubtedly adorable, is paying hundreds for a sweater your daughter will soon outgrow -- or splatter with mud! -- really a good idea?

Couture for kids is a hot market these days, with those that can afford it grabbing up kiddie sweaters for hundreds of dollars and drooling over high-priced tees for little ones.

 

It used to be that big-name designers targeted the wealthy adults who could afford the big price tags. But these days, those designers are penning fashions for a smaller crowd -- children. From Gucci to Fendi, big name designers are releasing couture collections for kids -- complete with the designer-style prices.

 

But it’s not just Suri Cruise rocking designer clothes for children ... other children not born to celebrities are wearing the high-priced kids’ couture. 

 

WHO whan to buy designer clothes?

If the designers are making these clothes, surely someone must be buying, right? They are. “It makes sense that designers are chasing after the one group that is still spending. Nearly half of affluent Americans (44%) bought luxury items in the second quarter of 2010, up slightly from 42% in the first quarter, according to Unity Marketing,” says Larissa Faw, editor of Youth Markets Alert/Marketing to Women for EPM Communications. 

 

Elizabeth Berger, MD, a child psychiatrist and author of the parenting book Raising Kids with Character  says that these designer duds for kids are a status symbol for parents who can afford it. “People with a lot of extra dollars often spend money on high-priced items that are themselves beautiful but that also send the message, ‘I am rich.’ Very high-priced clothing is often lovely and unique. But it also has a symbolic value as an advertisement, ‘I am special. I am wealthy,’” says Berger.