Amalía Fashionista Wraps up Summer

 Amalia wears a maxi dress in a tropical print while informing her staff that it's time for her afternoon snack.

For Suri Cruise, fashion guru of the pre-school set, it’s been a pretty crumby summer, what with her parents splitting up and then her Mom, Katie Holmes, refusing to buy her that puppy that she fell  in love with.  So she threw a tantrum. In public. 

 Between avoiding the paparazzi  and worrying about being kidnapped by Scientologists, Suri  was forced to hide out with her Mom in their new Manhattan digs and didn’t provide much fodder for the blogs devoted to her fashion choices.

For our granddaughter Amalia, however, 11-month-old fashion guru of the pre-potty-trained set, it was a summer of jetting about, from Manhattan to San Francisco to Nicaragua to Miami to Worcester, MA, where she celebrated her baptism on July 8, surrounded by 131 close friends and relatives.

This peripatetic summer called for swift, cutting-edge fashion decisions and packing skills and  challenged Amalía’s innate gift for accessorizing.  Here’s what the country’s youngest fashionista was seen wearing in the Summer of  2012:

The bathing suit is, of course, the most important summer fashion decision, and Amalía rocked these three.  The one-shouldered black suit embellished with a large camellia may make you think "Chanel", but in fact it's from Baby Gap.

They were perfect for Amalia's first dip in the ocean, in the water park, and in Papou's pool, where she floated in her very own turtle boat.

She chose an embroidered dress from Nicaragua for Father's Day brunch with Papi, and a patriotic frock for the Fourth of July party in Massachusetts, where she happily ripped a flag-printed paper napkin to shreds.

On the day before her baptism, in the company of Abuela Carmen Oyanguren, Amalía wore a nautical number while surveying all the goodies ready for the party, including Greek sweets, a large candle for the ceremony and a basket holding her new after-baptism outfit brought from Corfu by her godmother Areti Vraka.

She danced at her baptism party wearing the new dress, then added its jacket for taking communion in Miami on the second Sunday after the christening. (It's expected for the baby to take communion for the three Sundays following the baptism.  On the first Sunday Amalía was in Managua, Nicaragua, and on the second and third in Miami Beach.) The outfit worked equally well for driving around the supermarket on the way home.

Romper, skort, shorts and a sun dress were her choices for climbing a wall, strolling in the park, browsing through cookbooks and indulging in a frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity.

Here's what she wore for catching butterflies and balloons, hanging out in Central Park with Mommy, and dashing off to Lincoln Road for some serious shopping.  Notice the eclectic accessorizing of the elephant-embellished romper with the turquoise handbag and the lime hair bow. 

Daring fashion choices for sightseeing, blowing bubbles, phoning Grandma on speed dial and programming the I-Pad.

Like Queen Elizabeth, Amalía has mastered the royal wave to acknowledge her fans and the paparazzi.  She can even do it while reading a book upside down.

But life is not unbroken parties, parks and fun in Amalía's world.  Sometimes she has a bad hair day, which enrages her until she rips out her barrette and throws it on the street.  And some mornings, especially on weekends, her parents like to lounge in bed instead of taking her  for a walk, which causes her to climb into their bed and say, "I'm bored.  There's nothing to do around here."

Suri Cruise has a Fashion Challenger

Did you know that Suri, the pre-school daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, has a fashion blog that reports on what she's wearing every day?  Suri is famous for her pint-sized designer dresses and the fact that she often wears mini-high heels, even to the playground, causing moms of other pre-schoolers to gnash their teeth.

But Suri had better watch out, because there's another little girl who is threatening to take over as fashion guru and predictor of new style trends. And while Suri is five years old, my granddaughter Amalía is only five months old.  Yet she's  making daring and eclectic fashion choices.

It's all about accessories, and Amalía knows that God is in the details.  Here she  uses her lavender Bumbo chair as a striking contrast to her gray knitted dress.

But when she's in a spring-like mood, she plays off a flowery garden party number against the lavender Bumbo.

Sometimes she wears designer labels like Calvin Klein for public appearances.

But at heart, she's true to her school. (Her mommy's school--Bancroft.)

A daily decision is whether to wear stripes

or dots

or stripes on stripes

or stripes with lavender butterfly sandals

or to solve the dilemma by combining the stripes with giant polka dots.

The unusual fashion choice is what sets a fashion guru apart.  Like a frog hat.

Or better still, rocking Papi's beret.

When it gets chilly in Miami Beach you should really bundle up.

Amalía's life has become complicated with the introduction of real food (in addition to breast milk.)

So many decisions like:  What to eat?

And when you're teething, anything handy looks like something to chew on.

And after a whole day of making cutting-edge fashion decisions, sometimes you just give up and fall asleep in your high chair.