The durable and eye-grabbing Panton Junior has already put kids in the hot seat. Vitra recently made the classic stacking chair, originally designed by Verner Panton in 1959, available in a modish mini version. With a palette of lime, black, red, white, blue, pink and orange, it costs Euro139 and is available at Haus on Exchange Street in Temple Bar, Dublin.

Italian company Nume includes several clever multifunctional pieces among its collection. The four founding partners have backgrounds in architecture and interior design, fashion design and marketing, and corporate communications. They set out in 2003 to craft a complete line of furniture that not only conveys the values of aesthetics and design but that also satisfies the pedagogic need for active, creative, constructive learning. So an armchair piled on top of another transforms into a tower or set side by side becomes a nest. A chair doubles as a toy box. A small sofa made up of identical modules - with fully removable upholstery in cotton, linen or wool - can be used for play as building blocks or turned into a bed for little guests. A canopy bed made of multilayer birch can turn into a sofa or play area, with room for two kids.

Take the soft option with Barcelona-based design firm Nanimarquina's array of right-on rugs in bright hues, available through Duff Tisdall in Dublin. Choose from multicoloured checks or plains.

Now Habitat is playing to the gallery with its Very Important Products for Kids.

Already catering for children in its striking seasonal ranges with clever mats, lamps, bedlinen and accessories, it has launched a celebrity VIP collection which will be in-store towards the end of February.

The range aims to capture childrens' imaginations with designs by people with the "coolest jobs on the planet", from legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin to renowned fashion designers Paco Rabanne and Christian Lacroix, to model and writer Sophie Dahl. Cutting-edge designers Future Systems and Marcel Wanders also feature in the range.

Aldrin, who walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong in 1969, has founded his own rocket-design company, Starcraft Boosters Inc, and launched the ShareSpace Foundation, a non-profit organisation promoting space tourism. He wanted to make the moon he loves much more than a distant object children passively peer at through their windows. The author of Reaching for the Moon was keen to make it a place they could explore in their bedroom. His design is a Moonbuzz pendant light, which costs Euro75. Made from white resin, it produces an accurate 3D replica of the moon and its landscape.

The outstanding French yachtsman and racer Loick Peyron encorporated some of his boyhood dreams in the 'Skipper' bed, which costs Euro575, excluding the mattress.

"I wanted to offer the feeling of living in a sailing boat.

It doesn't matter if it's racing or cruising. The best 'voyage' is always the next to be embarked upon, " says the head of the Gitana team and most accomplished racer on the circuit. His children had a hand in the final design, specifying that they wanted a porthole in its roof with glowin-the-dark stars and moon.

If enforcing bedtime is a problem with your children, this cool cabin should appeal to their sense of adventure.

The cu-bed (Euro295), designed by actor Daniel Radcliffe, best known for his role as schoolboy wizard Harry Potter, can be magically twisted and reshaped into a variety of different forms from a den to a bed or a barricade.

When approached with a brief to stimulate kids' minds, architectures Future Systems came up with 'Flipnfriends', a state-of-the-art table (Euro360). Made from a single piece of thick, clear, coloured acrylic, the tables seat three and can be fitted together to create a larger multiple-elbow-friendly surface area. All acrylic leftover from the manufacture of the tables was fashioned into jigsaw puzzles (Euro30).

Bestselling children's author Jacqueline Wilson developed a smart storage solution for avid readers of her books, which number 80plus. She created a bookshelf, which can be assembled in lots of different ways to build a dramatic, book-inhabited cityscape. Featuring different formats of boxes, it allows big books to be put together, next to skinny books, on top of bulky books. Two sets of 'Storyland', which sell at Euro295 each, can be incorporated together, catering for real bookworms.

With the need for kids to have their own space in mind, movie star Kate Winslet designed something she wished she had when growing up, a box shrouded in mystery. Her 'Secret Box' (Euro250) provides the perfect place for children to keep their prized possessions well away from the prying eyes of adults. The truck, made from whitewashed oak with a dark blue velvet interior, has secret compartments, some of which can be locked.

'Matryoshka', by Dutch design guru Marcel Wanders, is a treasure box oozing glamour. Three sets of individually designed luxurious boxes form this unusual storage system, inspired by Babushka Russian nesting dolls.

Made from quality card with a gold foil print, each box's lid has a lip so they can be stacked on top of one another to create a real design feature. The final box, with its peaked roof, provides the finishing touch. For kids with as much time on their hands as stuff to stash, Wanders has hidden portraits of himself in a couple of designs.

The product comes in three sets of six, with the small set priced at Euro65, medium at Euro95 and large at Euro125.

With monsters a fascination for many children, Christian Lacroix's design features some of the friendly variety.

The resulting half-sweet, halfscary characters - Belly, Smoothy and Sweety - are based on some doodles he did while designing his prêt-aporter range. Crafted from a mixture of satin, plastic, knitted fabrics and golden thread, these flamboyant fellows come with matching gift bags.

They are available in three sizes: the small green fashion monster costs Euro30, the medium blue costs Euro45 and the large purple guy costs Euro50.

Paco Rabanne designed the 'Mona' doll (Euro45). It comes with its own set of machinewashable colouring pens for complete customisation.

Other pieces include Sophie Dahl's 'Fripperies' ornate dressing table, inspired by the one she sat at as a child in her grandmother's dressing room (Euro250) with matching stool (Euro42) and a glitzy backstage 'Hollywood' dressing room mirror (Euro50) by Miss Piggy to bring out your little princess's inner diva.

USEFUL CONTACTS
Habitat: Suffolk Street, 01 677 1433, Galway and Belfast; www. habitat. net
Haus: Exchange Street, Temple Bar West, Dublin, 01-679 5155.
Duff Tisdall: The Mill, Mill Street, Dublin 8, 01-454 1355
Nanimarquina: www. nanimarquina. com
Nume: www. nume-design. it