In a workroom on West 37th Street in Manhattan's Garment District, a seamstress named Elena Varga held up a bolt of ivory organza to the fluorescent light. The fabric would become a baptism dress for a seven-month-old in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Varga, who emigrated from Romania in 1989, has sewn christening gowns for three decades. She finds the orders increasingly specific. Parents now send Pinterest boards. They request sleeves that match grandmother's wedding photo from 1962. They want heirloom construction but machine-washable convenience.
The tradition of dressing infants and young children in white for Christian baptism dates to at least the sixteenth century in Western Europe. White symbolized purity and the washing away of original sin. In England, christening gowns often measured twice the length of the infant—a display of family wealth through excess fabric. These garments passed through generations. The royal christening robe used by the British monarchy from 1841 until 2008 was made of Honiton lace and Spitalfields silk, worn by 62 royal infants including Queen Elizabeth II.
American christening dress conventions emerged differently. Catholic immigrant families in the early twentieth century favored simpler cotton gowns. Protestant denominations developed regional variations. In the Lutheran communities of Minnesota, plain white linen predominated. Southern Baptist families in Alabama and Georgia often chose lighter fabrics suited to summer baptisms performed in rivers and ponds rather than church fonts.
Flower girl dresses occupy adjacent territory. The role of flower girl appeared in wedding ceremonies by the Victorian era, with children scattering petals to symbolize fertility and new beginnings. Their dresses traditionally echoed the bride's silhouette in miniature. By the 1950s, American department stores stocked dedicated flower girl sections. J.C. Penney catalogs from 1954 show puff-sleeved dresses in white and pastels priced at $8.95.
A Brief History of Ceremonial Children's Wear
White baptism dress tradition begins in Western Europe
Royal christening robe created for British monarchy
Department stores stock dedicated flower girl sections
David's Bridal expands children's formal wear
The overlap between baptism and flower girl attire solidified in the 1980s. David's Bridal, founded in 1950 in Fort Lauderdale, expanded its children's formal wear line in 1988. Manufacturers discovered parents would pay premium prices for dual-purpose garments. A dress worn at a cousin's wedding in April could reappear at a baptism in June. This practical calculation shaped product design. Hemlines rose slightly to allow toddlers to walk without tripping. Closures migrated from delicate pearl buttons to concealed zippers.
Elena Varga resists this convergence. Baptism gowns require different construction, she insists. They must accommodate being held, passed between godparents, dipped toward water. Flower girl dresses must survive running, spinning, sitting on grass. The stress points are not the same.
$3.8B
spent on children's formal wear in 2023
$340M
baptism and christening garments annually
47,000+
christening dress listings on Etsy (March 2024)
Retail data from the National Retail Federation indicates Americans spent approximately $3.8 billion on children's formal wear in 2023. The category includes first communion dresses, quinceañera gowns, bar and bat mitzvah attire, and wedding party clothes. Baptism and christening garments constitute a subset estimated at $340 million annually. Online marketplaces have fragmented what was once a department store monopoly. Etsy listed over 47,000 christening dress options as of March 2024. Amazon's selection exceeded 12,000.
This fragmentation troubles some within religious communities. Father Michael Chen at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Flushing, Queens, observes that families increasingly arrive with garments ordered sight-unseen from overseas vendors. Sizing runs inconsistent. Fabric content goes unlisted. Some dresses arrive with tags still attached from completely unrelated products—evidence of warehouse confusion in fulfillment centers handling thousands of SKUs.
Chen recalls a baptism in 2019 when the infant's dress tore at the shoulder seam during the ceremony. The family was mortified. The godmother removed her cardigan to cover the baby. Chen does not blame the family. They had done what consumers now do—searched, sorted by price and reviews, clicked. The tactile knowledge of fabric quality that Elena Varga carries in her fingertips is not transmissible through a screen.
The tactile knowledge of fabric quality that Elena Varga carries in her fingertips is not transmissible through a screen—yet online retail has democratized access in ways that matter deeply to families who previously could not afford ceremonial clothing.
Yet online retail has democratized access. Margaret Oduya, a pediatric nurse in Columbus, Ohio, grew up in Nigeria where her family could not afford dedicated ceremonial clothing. Her daughters wore a flower girl dress purchased secondhand through Facebook Marketplace to their baptisms at Resurrection Lutheran Church. The dress cost $35. Oduya washed it between each ceremony and donated it afterward. She does not view this as diminished. She views it as practical faithfulness.
The industry has noticed generational shifts in spending patterns. Kleinfeld Bridal, the Brooklyn institution famous for its wedding gown salon (and the TLC television series Say Yes to the Dress), added a children's formal wear floor in 2016. General manager Mara Urshel reported that millennial parents requested different things than their predecessors. They wanted photographs that would perform on social media. They wanted dresses that looked expensive but cost less. They asked about return policies.
Fabric sourcing has grown complicated. Domestic lace mills have largely closed. The last major American producer of Cluny lace, a style traditional in baptism gowns, shuttered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 2007. Most lace now comes from factories in Guangzhou and Hangzhou. Some arrives from Calais, France, where mechanized lace production began in the nineteenth century. Quality varies dramatically.
Children's formal wear factories in Dongguan, China, produce for dozens of Western brands under private label arrangements. A single factory might manufacture dresses sold under six different names at six different price points. The $40 dress on Amazon and the $180 dress at a specialty boutique sometimes originate from adjacent assembly lines. The differences lie in finishing details—hand-sewn hems versus serged edges, covered buttons versus plastic snaps, French seams versus exposed stitching.
Historians who study dress note that children's ceremonial garments reveal anxieties of their era. Linda Baumgarten, former curator of textiles at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, has examined surviving christening gowns from the eighteenth century. Many show evidence of alteration—tucks taken in or let out, sleeves adjusted, damaged lace replaced. Families valued these objects. They mended them. Contemporary culture treats children's formal wear as disposable. The dress is purchased for the photograph. It is worn once. It sits in a closet. Eventually it goes to Goodwill.
The rental market has emerged as a counterforce. Rent the Runway expanded into children's formal wear in 2018 through its RTR Kids program. A flower girl dress that retails for $250 rents for $45. The company dry-cleans garments between rentals and repairs minor damage. Environmental advocates applaud the model. A 2021 study from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that extending the active life of garments by nine months reduces their carbon, water, and waste footprints by approximately 20-30%.
The gown is blessed. It holds the holy water. It is wrapped in tissue paper and stored. The idea of renting such a garment strikes them as odd, even disrespectful.
On the tradition of sacred garments in Mexican American Catholic families
Not everyone embraces rental. Carmen Reyes operates a communion and christening shop in San Antonio's West Side. Her customers, predominantly Mexican American Catholic families, regard baptism gowns as sacred objects. The gown is blessed. It holds the holy water. It is wrapped in tissue paper and stored. Reyes has customers whose families have used the same christening gown for five generations. The idea of renting such a garment strikes them as odd, even disrespectful.
Fashion cycles further complicate the landscape. Baptism dress styles that appeared dated in 2005—high necks, long sleeves, empire waists—returned by 2022. Pinterest searches for "vintage christening gown" rose 67% between 2020 and 2023 according to the platform's annual trend report. Young parents, many raised on fast fashion, now romanticize the craftsmanship their great-grandmothers took for granted.
Elena Varga watches these cycles from her workroom. She has seen trends come and go. The poufy flower girl dresses of the 1980s. The minimalist shifts of the late 1990s. The tulle explosions of the 2010s. What remains constant is the request from mothers, repeated in different accents across three decades: make it special. Make it something she will keep.
Varga cannot promise what a dress will mean to an infant who will not remember wearing it. She can promise the stitches will hold. She can promise the fabric will last. The meaning is not her department.