Is this little girl the most pampered baby in Britain?
HER wardrobe boasts rack upon rack of designer dresses and her jewellery collection i ncludes £800 diamond earrings and a £2,800 Rolex watch.
She surely wouldn’t dream of venturing out without her £150 Gucci handbag, and on chilly days, wrapping up in one of her four £190 cashmere and fox fur capes is a must.
The only dilemma Romany Rose Rowland might face is which pair of shoes to select from the neat rows of sparkly £70 designer numbers that line her boudoir. Not that it particularly matters – because Romany Rose is just five months old, and of course, she can’t yet walk.
Her vast array of flouncy dresses, froufrou bonnets and frilly tu-tu skirts – not forgetting her £10 crystal and diamanteencrusted dummy – comes courtesy of her 20-year-old mother Witney Rowland and a set of doting grandparents who have spent a fortune blinging up baby.
Her mother confesses her ‘ultimate dream is for Romany Rose to be the new Honey Boo Boo’ – a reference to the popular American reality series featuring child beauty pageant contestant Alana ‘Honey Boo Boo’ Thompson. It attracted up to 3million viewers, but also received complaints that it exploited children, with one US critic calling it ‘a horror story posing as a reality television programme’.
But for the moment, all of that is of little concern to Romany Rose. As befitting a star in the making, she travels in style thanks to a fleet of nine £1,450 prams, selected on the day to match her outfit. If she ever gets a TV or movie audition it would be almost unthinkable that her fine, downy hair would not have been blow-dried and set with her pink Velcro rollers.
Afterwards, she could relax in her £400 pastel-pink bathtub, before
‘Everything I do is for her’
dozing off in a 200-year- old crib, recently restored and valued at a hiccup-inducing £2,000.
And if that wasn’t enough, for Christmas she’ll be getting a £3,000 handmade princess bed and a £500 ride-on toy Range Rover.
Grotesque over-indulgence? Or simply an enterprising young mother trying to make sure her precious daughter has all she needs for a path to stardom?
‘Everything I do is for Romany Rose and to make things easier for her when she grows up,’ says Miss Rowland, a single mother who runs a beauty parlour and lives near Plymouth with her parents Christine, 39, and 52-year-old Maurice, a blacksmith with a successful wrought iron business.
‘I want her to have it all, and to have the money to do whatever she wants to. When Romany is in one of her big dresses she is so happy and smiley because she gets so much attention.
‘If the time comes when she doesn’t want to be dressed up, then I will throw away all the big dresses and buy her the outfits she does want to wear. I’ll be disappointed, but it will be entirely up to her.’
So far Romany Rose – a perfectly adorable, contented baby – has enjoyed remarkable success in beauty pageants and fashion shows and has had various offers from model agencies. She even has her own Facebook page to keep friends and followers updated on her photoshoots and burgeoning career – but perhaps inevitably, it has drawn occasional cruel comments.
‘When we are out,’ Miss Rowland says, ‘people will say nice things, stuff like “Look at that baby with her Gucci bag!”.
‘But online, people have said some negative stuff. That’s just their opinion. They are of course entitled to it, but I think they are probably just jealous.’