baby&taylor kids fashion from France is a luxury knitwear brand for babies and children founded 40 years ago in Troyes, the birthplace of France’s knitwear industry.
Passed down from generation to generation, baby&taylor is a family run business that designs children’s clothing of a timeless style, the simple, smart forms, and high-quality materials. Today, the cities have changed from Paris to Shanghai, but the concept remains the same: classic French knitwear, natural fibers, and youthful exuberance.
Marie-Sophie Provot-Ragueneau (granddaughter of Marcel Vitoux inventor of an early knitting machine) had a vision to dress young French children in the fashions of contemporary Paris. In the late 1970s, Marie-Sohphie created the Baby Taylor label that was a success for two decades and was retired in the 1990s.
The family story continues when Marie-Sophie’s daughter in law Valerie Toyomura-Provot and son Julien create baby&taylor..
As Lead Designer and Creative Director, Valerie Toyomura-Provot’s relationship with fashion, design, and creativity stems from her worldwide explorations.
Raised in Tokyo to French-Japanese parents, she first studied the tools of fashion under Japanese designer Katoh Kazutaka.
After her apprenticeship, Toyomura-Provot traveled to Rajastan, India to devote time to the traditional embroidery techniques of the Harijan people in the Kutch region.
By 2005, she opened her first retail shop and headed her own imprint, “Touareg” (named after the Berber people of the Saharan to symbolize her own nomadic lifestyle).
Valerie eventually left Tokyo and her design company for Shanghai with her young family.
baby&taylor’s Shanghai shop, a colorful combination of Provot-Ragueneau’s Parisian spirit and Toyomura-Provot’s youthful designs, is housed in a charming building dating back to the 1920’s.
Toyomura-Provost’s baby&taylor may be reaching a new generation, but classic style and superior knitwear are timeless qualities.