You’re Never Too Young to Accessorize

March 8, 2010 · 6 comments

AccessoriesMain

Dressing a little girl is fun.  She’s cute beyond belief, and, at 18 months old, still too young to object to our ideas about what she should wear, at least for a few more weeks. Shopping for a little girl isn’t easy, though, at least for these two men.  There’s certainly a lot to choose from, but a lot of what’s out there seems to fall into two problematic categories.  In one, the clothes are too elaborate –overly sweet, frilly, over-embellished, impractical and, often, a little kitschy.  In the other, they’re basic, practical and mostly tasteful, but they can seem a bit drab for a bubbly little girl. A toddler-chic middle ground is hard to find.

This winter I discovered a solution that stylish people have relied on for eons: accessories.  We had got Julia a nice winter coat that was tailored, tasteful and, well, brown.  Strolling through the girls section of the little J.Crew store in Southampton (which we do often), we ran across a fabric flower hair clip that I thought might make a nice ornament to cheer up her new (and, yes, slightly dowdy) coat.  It wasn’t difficult to adapt.  I gently peeled off the felt backing, removed the metal barrette and reattached the felt with a little fabric glue.  A few stitches secured the flower to the coat.

Accessories1

It got good reviews.  Spurred on by this success, I’ve adapted a couple more of these hair ornaments to add a little girlish charm to some of Julia’s more utilitarian jackets and sweaters.  They seem to dry-clean reasonably well, but I remove them from anything before it goes in the wash.  Attaching them with a safety pin makes this easier, and, of course, gives one more accessory options.

The girls’ Fleur hair clips are $8.50 at J.Crew stores and www.jcrew.com.  FlowerPin

J.Crew now makes fabric flower pins for girls, but they’re far too large for a toddler.  Next, maybe some cool belts . . . .

DDChop

Previous post:

Next post: