At Lina Piccolina, Upscale Children's Consignment means Starch and Scrubbing

In Italian, lina piccolina means "little little little," explains Lina Piccolina owner Teresa Coletta.

Walk downstairs at 58 Main St. into Coletta's store, and "little' won't be the first word that comes to mind.

With tasteful touches everywhere, Lina Piccolina, an "upscale resale, new and custom apparel shop," is like stepping through a storybook door and into the bedrooms of little princesses and princes. Rooms spill into rooms, nooks and crannies catch your eye from every angle. It always feels cozy but you can get lost inside this children's clothing store. As Coletta puts it, "it's not your ordinary rectangular room."

Dresses, pants, shirts, shoes and toys hang from racks and line up in tidy rows. There's stuff for girls and boys of all sizes, from infancy to size 8 or so, Coletta said.

"Isn't this adorable?" she said with a sweep of her arm towards a rack of dresses while giving a tour of the store. "Everything is impeccable. I scrub all the shoes if they've been pre-owned. Everything is like new."

The pants are starched, the shirts are ironed and only brands with lasting appeal and durability make the cut, Colette said. Though she does sell things on consignment, she won't take just anything. Think Hanna Andersson, not Circo.

A retired designer and instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design, Coletta said she's "pretty good with the color thing and fabric" so she can offer style in addition to selection, which she describes as "interesting pretty things I collect."

That includes toys, a rocking horse, oodles things that could become gifts or even household decor. 

"We have something you can buy from fifty cents to $150," Colette said. "We're all over the place."

But one place Lina Piccolina is not is in a high-visibility location on Main Street. She's tucked in the ground floor of the quaint retail building she occupies with other businesses like Silver Spoon Bakery.

"If I could just get more people down here, to make them aware of the place, business would take off," she said. "I get people all the time who tell me 'oh, I didn't know you were here and I wish I did sooner!'"

Lina Piccolina Children's Clothiers can be reached at 401-885-2558 or visit www.linapiccolina.com.

You can also follow the shop on Facebook.