When left to their own devices, children are actually the best dressers because their clothing is always an outward expression of their inward spirit. When parents do the dressing, too often we see kids decked head-to-toe in gendered ensembles with gaudy cartoon characters emblazoned across the front, their little bodies swallowed in swaths of symmetrical ruffles. Brooklyn-based kids' clothing label Opus, on the other hand, seems to have built in that undeniably chic haphazardness of children—the little girl with bed head who's put on her pink tutu (askew) over dirty jeans and her brother's hand-me-down baseball t-shirt, for example. Founder Scarlett Boulting doesn't have any children, which may be why she's so good at designing clothing for them. I got a chance to sit down and talk shop with Boulting at her home in Brooklyn, where she was kind enough to serve me tea and show me samples.

Check out a slideshow of Opus collections past and present. 

She says her vision for the label is one that will reflect the tastes of a creative and artistic clientele, and she knows that she is designing clothing as much—if not more—for the parents as she is for the kids. She brings a very intuitive, well-trained eye for color, cut, and proportion to all of her designs, picking palettes whimsically, and adding flourishes of, say, shimmery lamé or hot pink hunting camouflage to add character. She admits that her clothing is not traditionally masculine, but is quick to add—quite rightly—that neither are babies. And this is what's to love most about Opus: the designs are always intuitive, never prescriptive.

The collections are designed and produced exclusively in NYC, which allows Boulting to monitor quality. It also means that the clothes are more expensive to produce, but she hopes that the high-quality materials will mitigate sticker shock, though $48 for a ruffle short or $88 for a diagonal jumpsuit seem pretty reasonable given the care and attention paid to each garment. The fact that Opus is doing it's small part (her collections aren't large) to support NYC factories is important to Boutling, and she hopes that it will be important to her clients as well. In any case, as a child who grew up on second-hand clothing, I'm confident that each piece in the Opus collection will live more than one life. 

Check out a slideshow of Opus collections past and present. 

You can also purchase Opus products online at:

Estella, NYC
Sweet William, NYC
Monkey & The Bug, Boston
Le Labatoratoire, Lausanne
Making Things, Zurich
Baby Bubble, Korea
Fawn & Forest
Kids of Luxury

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