‘Brangelina’ baby pics bring Kingsley fame

Jane Wells Correspondent • Profile • E-mail

LOS ANGELES - Who knew what a windfall a little logo could bring?

The first pictures of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt — Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s new baby girl — have been published in People magazine. The photographs reportedly cost the magazine $4.1 million, but they’ve given a young clothing maker the sort of publicity no amount of money can buy.

Brad and Angelina’s infant daughter is shown on the cover and inside the pages of the latest issue of People wearing a shirt with a Kingsley logo — that’s a small baby clothing business based in southern California.

Kingsley Aarons and his wife Amy started the firm two years ago after the birth of their son. They sell the clothes on a web site that plays Led Zeppelin and where price tags look more like concert tickets.

“Our goal is to make quality products with some cool art,” said Aarons. “The sort of clothes that I would even wear [and] that I would like to put on my son.”

And Kingsley has just hit a home run. The company’s sales are expected to double this year to $1 million, but that was before baby Shiloh made the label famous by wearing a Kingsley shirt on the front page of People.

The shirt Shiloh is wearing in People is called ‘Pots and Pans’ and costs about $40. Kim Ciliberto, who sells kids clothing through her Web site Tuttibella.com, says the shirt was her best-selling item from the last collection. Kingsley’s shirts always do well with the ‘in style’ crowd, she adds, but sow she has sold out of the ‘Pots and Pans’ shirt and is ordering more.

“It sees like [the news about People magazine] broke today, and as of this morning we’re seeing the orders rolling in,” Ciliberto said.

Of course, there are always the P.R. people touting that they actually gave Jolie and Pitt the shirt, and so got lucky.

New York-based 5W Public Relations tells CNBC it has a relationship with the famous couple and sent them the Kingsley shirt for free from Belly Maternity, a baby retailer in Denver, Colo. They call it “product placement at its finest.”

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