Zoli

I caught the end of a baby wearing presentation the other day. It is interesting to see what can be done with a single rectangular piece of cloth, but I think we'll stick with our favorites, the Bjorn and Mei Tai and once the kid is bigger, the Kelty backpack ("robo-Bjorn" I heard someone call it once). However, leave it to the experienced mom to notice the jacket the baby wearing mama put on when finished.

She beamed when I asked about it, "It's a baby wearing coat!" Called a Zoli, from France, it is a jacket with two zipper inserts. One piece zips into the front and the other into the back of the jacket, and the inserts are interchangeable, depending whether the baby is in a front carrier or a back carrier. (Soft carriers or wraps that is, a frame backpack would not fit.)

I found the website later [ www.zoli.fr ], all in French -- it is not available in the States -- and admired the Zoli jacket with my husband. The two-headed person look, so easily achieved with baby wearing was even more pronounced with the Zoli jacket because the baby's head is either right under mom's chin or peering around her ear, with no body visible. He urged me to contact his cousin, who lives in France, about it.

"Oh look at the hats!" I cooed. Pointy elf-like hats that come down over the baby's ears, neck, and shoulders coordinate with the jacket and keep the baby warm.

"Look at the collar of the jacket," noted my husband, and indeed it had a nice shape and style to it.

"Oh the French..." I sighed.

Because in searching for the baby wearing coat, I found some variations available in the U.S., but they either looked like sleeping bags attached to the front or back of a normal jacket, or they were just big wrap-around or poncho type articles of clothing. They had no style. The French do style.

So we looked up the exchange rate for the euro, and after squabbling over that for a bit -- "You put in too many zeros... the comma is like our decimal point ... you still have too many zeros..." -- we translated the price. It was nearly what I paid for my wedding dress!

"Well, it's a specialty item," reflected my husband.

French baby wearing fashion ... mama couture. I never did get bitten by the couture wedding dress bug, but a mommy jacket? Well now, that's got some utility! Though I expect I'll continue to wear my various jackets and just wrap a blanket around the Bjorn, like most other people.