Designer Heather Young says she never planned to create a children’s clothing line, but everything started steering her in that direction—and not just because she had a baby of her own.

Over the past decade or so, the Vancouver talent has developed a quiet cult following for her women’s label, Dust, a line known for as much for its quiet style as its unique natural fabrics and fine details. She took the past year off for maternity leave, and found herself full of inspiration for toddler wear when she headed back to her studio for the first time early this year. The result is Babydust, a limited collection of playful pieces, meticulously crafted with her signature pleating, button details, and trims.

“With the first baby, you’re so involved, and then you get a little rest and this creative surge comes completely back. It was really nice when it came back. I mean I wasn’t sure if it was going to come back!” Young says laughing during an interview at an East Side coffee shop. “For my women’s line, I did do a dress and a blouse in black for spring, and it was fun. But not as fun as this.”

Little by little over the past year, signs kept pointing her in the direction of her children’s line. On a purely practical level, she had a lot of fabric remnants left over from her Dust creations; they were too small to craft into adult clothing, but lent themselves well to ankle-biter sizes. This means that Babydust, like her women’s collection, is made largely from natural fabrics: linens, soft wool, and brushed cotton.

As a new mother, she also started to notice the children’s clothing market in general—what was plentiful and what was missing. She found herself favouring pieces that were special and weren’t mass-produced. “I liked the handmade sweaters we got and that sort of thing,” she explains. “A lot of children’s clothes are garish and kind of mini-adult.

“Then we went to France last August to visit family and that’s when we saw this whole world of fashion we didn’t know about—clothing for kids on every level from stores in the mall, which were really fashionable, and then up to designer baby things by Dior and Gucci. It made me realize how restricted the market is here, and how there’s a space for these kinds of clothes.”

The other big inspiration was her boxes of vintage patterns, given to her by her mother and lovingly culled from thrift stores and elsewhere. Young adapted a few of them to create timeless, classic silhouettes that recall those old Dick and Jane storybooks. One is the red- or lilac-linen pinafore dress, with its fine pleating and striped, boho fabric along the hem ($68). Another is based on patterns for the tiny jackets crafted for Chinese baby banquets. They come in a festive butterfly silk brocade, a polka-dot wool lined in floral cotton, or a grey wool lined in coordinating silk ($40 to $45).

Elsewhere there’s a jumper that comes in denim or tan or red cotton twill; with its rib-cuff legs it’s cute and retro, the kind of basic shape your dad or grandma might have worn as a toddler. And that’s the point, says Young: “I hope these clothes will be passed on and kept—that they could be pulled out 30 years later.”

The pieces are special, but the practicalities Young has learned from trying to change a squirmy baby have worked their way into her collection too. A big seller promises to be her linen-cotton pants, adapted from the crossover-fastening, loose-fitting Thai fisherman pants that have found a new following among the yoga generation. The simple snap closures instantly open and drop the pants. They come in olive, red, blue, white, and orange ($45).

Babydust can be found via the Web at www.etsy.com/ and in store at Eugene Choo (3683 Main Street). Different colours are available at each outlet. Young has no plans to expand the line; she wants to keep it limited—special. And besides, it’s about all she can manage with juggling care for the active one-year-old Clement at home.

Young has enjoyed her retreats to the relative calm of her studio to give birth to Babydust. Of her other baby, she admits with a smile: “I never took him to the studio when I was doing this. He’d wreck it!”