Discovering the Papo d'Anjo catalogue can be a humbling experience for parents who think their children are well dressed and attractive. Manufactured from Liberty of London prints, Scottish tartans, and Italian shirt fabrics, Papo d’Anjo’s clothing looks like something you’d expect to see in a vintage paparazzo shot of an Agnelli grandchild skipping down a quay in Monte Argentario. Then there are the models—a cornucopia of cornfed American blonds and olive-skinned Iberians. The burn comes later, when you learn that some of them are the offspring of founder Catherine Monteiro de Barros (nee Catherine Connor of the Wisconsin Connors).

Monteiro de Barros, 45, launched Papo d’Anjo in 1995, not long after she quit her job at CNN, married a Portuguese businessman, and moved to Lisbon. “I was flailing around for something to do. I was having kids, and so I fell into that huge cliche of starting a children’s clothing line. Back then, it seemed like there was a real niche in the U.S. for well-made children’s clothes, and Lisbon was still full of workshops with women hanging over their sewing machines.” To sell her merchandise in the U.S., Monteiro de Barros drafted well-connected friends in Nashville, Atlanta, Greenwich (Connecticut), and New York City to host trunk shows. As a result of these invitation-only events, the clothes became a stealth status symbol.

Nowadays, the company’s army of hostesses numbers 100, and they account for nearly half of its $10 million in annual sales. Now Papo d’Anjo (the name comes from a Portuguese dessert and translates as “tummy of an angel”) is making a bigger push in retail. It already has a small shop in Harrods, in London, and will take over the old Best & Co. floor space in Bergdorf Goodman, in New York City, this winter.