Everything for today’s infant who goes places.

Every year the top designers unveil their latest fashion creations for the little people of the world. This doesn’t mean fashion designs for the Warwick Davises and Billy Bartys of the world, nor those who don’t make in a year what Paris Hilton leaves for a tip after lunch at Sardi’s. The little ones that the fashion gurus design for are infants and designer baby clothes, as bizarre as the concept seems, grow more popular each year. Despite the fact that the child will outgrow the garments in very little time, well to do parents love to ooh and aah over fashionable items designed by the likes of Christian Dior, Kimora Lee, and others. The top fashion houses produce body suits, bibs, booties, and bonnets that are soft to the touch, beautiful to behold, cost many times more than the typical Kmart baby outfit and are just waiting to be urpped on by a baby suffering from colic.

Baby Dior

Perhaps the best known line of designer wear for infants comes from Christian Dior. Dubbed Baby Dior, the line includes items like the sweet 100otton Dior baby body suit with pink or blue snaps, the Dior teddy bear logo on the chest, and a price tag of $55.00 from E Luxury dot com. The site is nice enough to point out that parents who find this item attractive may also like the $115.00 Baby Dior hooded towel.

Baby Phat

Leave it to Rap pioneer and Def Jam records founder Russell Simmons to innovate a way to bring a bit of bling into the nursery. To promote his Phat Farm line of men’s hip-hop styles, Simmons had a number of small tee shirts designed with the legend “Baby Phat” printed on them. The shirts were donned by female celebrities and models and garnered quite a bit of attention. The Baby Phat line was born and Simmons made his wife Kimora Lee the line’s creative director. Baby Phat produces clothes for young girls (sorry, make that “girlz”) from their teens all the way down to infancy. Baby Phat baby wear includes tees priced from $11.00 to $18.00 and matching outfits ranging in price from $34.00 to $42.00.

Anne Geddes

One of the latest names in baby clothes is that of famed photographer Anne Geddes. Apparently inspired by the popularity of her famous photos of babies dressed up as bumble bees, ladybugs, sunflowers, and rosebuds, Geddes has launched “annegeddesbaby,” a line of clothing for infants that will allow parents to dress their newborns as, well, bumble bees, ladybugs, sunflowers, and rosebuds. Included are pieces like the Ladybug Jacket ($39.50), the Bunny Suit, Hat and Booties Set ($69.50), and the Rosebud Quilt ($29.50).

Designer baby clothes may not be the easiest thing for the more frugal parent out there to comprehend, but they’re for real and they’re being purchased in droves. The one nice thing about the phenomena for all of the parents who can’t afford such infantile extravagancies (or who just won’t pay those kinds of prices) is that the babies wearing these labels today will outgrow them tomorrow and a lot of the items will grace the shelves of your local Salvation Army or Goodwill store sometime after that, bearing a pinned on price tag that reads $1.50.