Gone are the pastel-colored, bunny-decorated onesies of yesteryear.

Wild Child Duds

What do Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants have in common with Che Guevara?

Gone are the pastel-colored, bunny-decorated onesies of yesteryear.

All three can be found in many a child's closet.

Gone are the pastel-colored, bunny-decorated onesies of yesteryear - they've been replaced by kid-sized t-shirts that are almost too cool for school. Parents are stamping their memories and tastes on their kids before the retro-clad tykes can even say Mama Mia . . . and, well, it's pretty darn cute.

"One kid came into one of my classes the other day wearing a Bob Dylan T-shirt," says Suzy Lescher, a Los Angeles preschool teacher. "I mean, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know who that is . . . he's more into, like, Raffi."

For many adults, casual Friday is the closest they can get to donning the T's themselves. Alternative kids clothes allow parents to buy all the items they wish they could wear, but can't, and perhaps also lets them choose clothing with which they identify.

And what parent doesn't identify with Sid Vicious from time to time?

"I think when it comes to baby fashion, this is [a way] you get to play dress up," says Valerie Whitman, owner of the California-based online store My Punk Baby. Whitman is now moving beyond the Ramones and Blondie T-shirts she's been selling and is working on making miniaturized suit jackets, the kind normally seen on non-pint-sized rockers.

For the sartorially inclined, babyhood can be something of a golden moment in parenting. You probably won't want to tell your 15-year-old what concert T-shirt to wear, but your 15-month-old won't put up a fight about it. (Of course, insist on outfitting any child in nothing but Black Sabbath T-shirts and you just might end up with a rebel who blares chamber music and wears ascots. . . . )

Four-year-old Lyra Alvis of Nashville, TN, has a Beatles T-shirt she loves. Her mother Leila has been eyeing a child-sized Jimi Hendrix shirt, but she has her reservations.

"If my kid looks cool, I think I feel a little bit cooler, too," she says. "But, then again, it's possible that the cooler she looks, the more I look like a dork in comparison."

Posted on May 15, 2006