For the children of rock stars, pink and blue just doesn’t cut it.
So when Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres and his pals started having babies a few years back, he decided to make a line of gear just for them, aptly called rockstarbaby.
“It was all just pink and blue, and I thought, ‘I can’t relate to this!’ ” Torres recalls.
“So I decided to do something with clean white and black — it’s sharper, with more of a hip attitude. I figure parents dress themselves up, so why not have children look that way as well?”
The rocker opened a store in New York City’s trendy NoHo neighborhood in 2000, and shuttered it not too long after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
He then began selling the line exclusively in Europe, and now, has triumphantly returned to the United States via a web store at rockstarbaby.com.
Torres designs all the looks himself, then sends them off to London, where his production team works their magic, turning his sketches into sleek, high-end goods.
While designing baby gear might seem like a funny side job for a rock star, for Torres, it’s just natural.
“I grew up with a family of seamstresses,” he tells PEOPLE Moms & Babies. “I’d cut patterns with my grandma, she’d design them and sew them up. My stage costumes from the 1960s to 1990s were handmade.”
Torres is passing that eye for design down to his son, Hector, 6½, too. “He’s worn all the stuff, and he thinks it’s cool. It gives him a little attitude — good attitude,” the drummer says. “I always listen to what he says. I think that the comfort is the first thing, so it’s worth finding the best cottons.”
Torres is also careful of seam placement — “It’s babies, you want to be sure they’re not irritated!” — and uses safe dyes.
“At the end of the day you can keep washing them, especially the blacks and dark colors, and know they’re not going to fade after three washes.”
Aside from onesies, hats, T-shirts and shoes, Torres sells pacifiers, bottles, cups, plates and other gift-like items, too.
“There’s a little black duck that’s so cute, it has a skull and crossbones on the tail,” he says. The edgy pattern is seen throughout much of the line, which covers ages 0 to 6 years and runs from about $10 to $100.
“I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here,” Torres says, laughing. “But you design for what your lifestyle is about. And right now, I think parents are hipper than they’ve ever been. And that should be reflected in their kids’ clothes.”
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