with glasses, and Felix, 2 1/2, in black top." align="center" /> Sisters Melissa Robbins, left, and Jenny Moon road-test Moppit designs on their children: Ella, 20 months, pink top, Archie, 5, with glasses, and Felix, 2 1/2, in black top.
Photo: Marina Oliphant
labels for kids?
Gina Morris talks to the Melbourne women cashing in on the buy-for-baby boom.
Four years ago, Ally Shultz, now a 39-year-old suburban mother of three, sat down at her sewing machine and made a faux-fur, rug-wrap-throw for her second born, son Emery. She would take her where she got it.
Today, her Minimink faux-fur products are sold around the most famous children in the world, Suri Cruise and the ever increasing Jolie-Pitts.
things: a stay-at-home mum, or a career mum. Shultz is one of a stay-at-home career mum.
Launching a creative enterprise in the plenty of bonuses. It's acceptable to bring your children to phone talking commerce.
In the Prahran warehouse base of Gertie Me, there are two of the label's Moses baskets, top-to-toe against the wall, one each photocopier.
Street, tucked away behind stacks of boxes, there's a tots' corner - with a big, animal-filled doll's house and a cute, spotty-blanket-covered mini bed. It's where the Moppit sisters, Jenny Moon, 29 and Melissa Robbins, 31, put their children to play, eat and sleep while they work. It's not always the easiest of situations, but people tend to be more understanding.
with my accountant," says Moon, remembering some of the harder aspects of being a MD mum. "But my accountant was great and actually ended up helping me do it."
Like Minimink, Moppit started by happy accident after Moon began screen-printing T-shirts at home, with slogans such as "Insomniac" and "Chick Magnet", for her eldest son Archie, now 5.
Interest rapidly grew and, two years ago, Moon "the dictator" went into partnership with her "calming" older sister, then a high-school Last November, they opened their first shop, in Northcote, and are busy finalising plans for their second premises, on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles.
Once a niche market, it is now one of the highest growth areas in retail, worth an estimated $2 billion every year. It wasn't all homemade clothes cut from old curtains.
Our mothers might reason that choice was limited then, but hard-wearing, practical and cheap were what mattered most. We knew fairies well into our early teens.
But these days it's all about style.
Kiddie couture is a booming Armani to Dolce Gabbana is knocking out expensive, miniature versions of catwalk fashions in their junior ranges.
In Australia, the reason for the market growth is obvious. As the latest figures from the Bureau of Statistics show, we are wealthier, having fewer kids and bearing them later in life.
With so many older, new mothers around, more work-and-life-savvy, it's creating or spotting a gap in the market.
For Shultz, setting up Minimink was never about financial gain. "I didn't make the throw because I thought it would make me rich," she explains, as she waits to order lunch at a cafe at Chadstone, where it all began.
"I made it because I wanted it for myself."
Last year 7000 people, in Australia alone, wanted one, too. Shultz, who worked in investment management for 15 years before being retrenched weeks before giving birth to Emery, still runs the business herself from home, distributing to some 350 retailers all around the world.
product designed and made by a mother. You can be sure of its safety, durability and washability. The faux fur used by Minimink, for example, won't shed.
Moppit's clothes have to stand up to SIDS safety guidelines.
Although Guinness' company, Gertie Me, (Gertie is her dog) started a few months before her twins were conceived, babies had been "very much on the agenda" for some time.
A fully qualified nurse, she quips that her decision to source Eighteen months on and things are, Guinness says, ticking along nicely.
She now employs someone full-time and, three months ago, moved the business out of her house and into a warehouse space. Her range has grown to include dressing gowns, baskets and soft toys. On her last visit here, Princess Mary bought the echidna from her Having someone famous endorse your product is, naturally, very good for business: sales of the Bugaboo Pram, for example, rocketed thanks to Gwyneth Paltrow and baby Apple.
Moppit has Russell Crowe, street wear.
Andrew Demetriou, chief executive of the AFL went one step further than simply promoting the product. He and his wife, Symone, loved Purebaby organic cotton wear so much, they bought into the company.
Symone admits it was primarily for their own gain - they wanted the label's founder and designer, Mirabai Winford, to expand "It was a case of a small business not being able to grow," explains Symone, 35, who now also has an eight-week-old baby girl. "So we got financially involved. Andrew loved the product as much as me, so it didn't take much persuasion.
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For most people, getting involved, being interested or even in their lives. Collette Dinnigan didn't start her Enfant range until she had had her daughter, Estella, and Fiona Scanlan parted child, George.
Simone Ryan, 33, is a consultant for Big, and also sells the Cosgrove and her husband Sean, who started Mooks).
She quit her job after she had her son, Finn.
"I can now fit him into my job," she explains. "I've even taken him to trade fairs.
Being a mother, you can really relate to the product and the retailers believe you understand the market, and you do."
There is a downside though. "I can't exactly fit into children's wear samples," she pines.
"My wardrobe has suffered, but Finn's is fantastic."
Often better. According to a survey from financial services company, Mint, 68 per cent of mothers now spend more on their children's clothes than they spend on their own.
There are a number of reasons. Some parents want their children to have what no other unique. For others, it's about showing off their sense of style and affluence on their biggest and best accessory: their offspring.
"It sounds terrible," says Moon, who is herself wearing Moppit style pop-colours and jeans, "but kids are an accessory: they're an extension of yourself. I like to look good and I want my kids to look good, too. I want to feel proud.
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