prings brings celebrations – weddings, graduations, and parties for many occasions.  Your future fashionistas want to be dressed to the 9s, too and this season has sophisticated party dresses for the young ones.  The Children’s Club Expo, sponsored by ENK and held at the Jacob Javits Center this week was a wonderland for spring finds.  These dresses were appropriate for kids, but tasteful and grown-up at the same time.  

Whether done up with appliqués, embellishments, or all-over sequins, these dresses definitely redefine what we wore to parties when we were kids.  You would want to super-size any of these and go out for a night on the town.  

In fact, the designers for Matooka, a new Canadian company, did just that.  The adult-size versions they were wearing of their kids collections looked just as amazing.  While lines like Dino e Lucia and Haven Girl used a judicious amount of sequins in their designs, David Charles London’s creations were beautifully designed with just subtle hints of sparkle and boleros to match some of their sleeveless designs.

Sophisticated dresses have their place, but we can’t forget that girls just wanna have fun.  Cue the Punky Brewster-meets-Madonna (circa the 80’s)-meets Cyndi Lauper styles that were on display.  We were seeing a lot of puffy tulle skirts paired with edgy, deconstructed rock-n-roll tees or other rocker details.  These looks are lots of fun (what girl doesn’t want to wear a tutu?) and seasonless – leggings and shrugs complete the look in cold weather.

Baby fashionistas need to start early.  For the littlest girls and babies, the skirted onesies and dresses by Specialtee Designs were fun and cool with tons of embellished designs to choose from.