Mumsnet members get a 10% discount from Boden (including free returns and free delivery), The White Company, sweaty Betty, Luxury Family Hotels, JoJo Maman Bebe, Siblu, Blooming Marvellous, GLTC, Bump to 3 (the official online shop for Grobags) and more. Click here for more info Join mumsnet here.
I am fed up with being made to feel like I am a real cow because I buy clothes from Boden, it isn't as if I am stealing the food from a child is it????????
No I really am! Wasn't being sarcastic and although mostly boden p*sses me off because I get the catalogue, get all excited and then nothing fits I still consider myself a thoroughly good egg
No, it's that wearing Boden is likely to go along with being white, affluent and middle class, and this is a combination that winds a lot of people up!
Johnnie Boden thinks women should stay at home and not go out to work. But I still wear the clothes.
(Because it takes simply ages when I try to investigate everyone who makes my clothes to make sure they are properly feminist.)
I am obviously very horrible then - and so is my ds because we both wear Boden clothes . Dh, however is only slightly horrible, as he only owns two items of Boden clothing, both of which were bought by me!
I have always thought that the description of the clothes in the catalogue are a little bit smug. Bought some for ds recently as has a discount code but have not been convinced that they're any better than gap for kids.
From my detailed studies in the field - the North Norfolk Coast - I would say that Boden wearing is one characteristic among many others of a sub-group of white affluent middle class called the Boden Brayers. However simply wearing Boden does not automatically qualify you as a member of this group. You also need to drive a huge pristine Range Rover which you park across a narrow village street while you unload the 3 weeks-worth of waitrose shopping, the four children and the nanny. You then perform an elaborate production of 'what a happy healthy family does in Norfolk', projecting well for those at the back, or indeed in the next village. The plot is action packed with elaborate beach barbecues (especially on NT ecologically sensitive sand spits where they are banned - but having arrived in your aythentic crab fishing boat, you will have failed to see the notices aimed at mere day trippers on the ferry), trips to the fishmongers and deli in the local town where you loudly discuss the provenance of every clove of garlic and can of cannelinni beans, and gin and tonics while pretending to be a local in the pub. Props include a set of wooden beach quoits, some Kath Kidston beach chairs, and a £140k beach hut. At no time will you ever take into account that you may be blocking any road, deafening any nearby people or causing an entire queue of local rurally deprived shoppers to miss their once-a-day coastal bus service bus home.
But you will look v nice on your hotchpotch T shirt and bright cheery mocasin style shoes.
i think we just missed being in that tribe last year - by a 4x4, nanny, a couple of kids, and the braying and a few other things, so actually we missed it by a mile! thank goodness!
I would like to confirm that I have actually been on a hol with BK (where we desported ourselves in a french deli), and that no member of her family has ever been known to bray!
I'm also wearing Boden top at the mo', and boots and just about to put on Boden jacket to collect dd's from nursery. One of them in Boden the other not as most of her stuff comes back completely wrecked with paint, food etc.
SoMuchToBits- I also have a slightly horrible dh as he only has a few items, again bought by myself.
"You then perform an elaborate production of 'what a happy healthy family does in Norfolk', projecting well for those at the back, or indeed in the next village." [my italics]
i have some boden stuff mostly cos i loath going to actual shops and their webpage is really good. i only buy in the sale and try not to buy the really obvious "look at the woman in the boden clothes" pieces. (runs off to practise braying)
hmmm
I wear Boden, as do each of my three children. We visit the North Norfolk coast on daytrips in our 4x4 with our black lab (lest you forget that) and also Aldeburgh (not Southwold).
I've got a couple of jumpers and tops from the sale for dds - they're ok value when they're half price, otherwise its a bit silly to spend £18 on a pair of trousers for a 2 year old (if you don't have that kind of money to spend). I dont really like the adult clothes much, the tops are wierdly short and they're not really worth the money.
I always get a discount for my ds's clothes, and because he is not too wild, I sell them when he grows out of them on ebay (and they sell for a reasonable amount of money).
I am quite selective in what I buy from them, and agree some of their tops are a bit short, even though I'm not a tall person.
But you see, Cupcakes, the braying and blocking everything up in an inconsiderate fashion are INTEGRAL. Boden wearing is not. And thank you for introducing the lab...though that veers a bit much towards BB's country-dwelling cousin rather than the Hampstead / Pimlico / Notting Hill urbanite.
Ooh yes, and Aldeburgh.
All places I love, and visit of course.
But stereotyping is wrong, and to be discouraged at all times, especially in an unventilated area or with children present.
Boco - I'm the one with the ridiculously untrained lab (I had to hang onto a lamp post the other week to stop him pulling me over), the too short Boden top and the wild and unkempt boy and girl dominating the pavements with their scooters...
i had never heard of boden till i joined mn! i haven't looked at their clothing but i'll go have a peek now to top off the image that you have all created in my minds eye....
Do you wear sassy skirts? Are the the kids all hotchpotch? Are you hanging onto that lampost in a carefree, life is ruddy fun and i'm rather wholesome sort of way?
I don't wear there stuff but do buy it for the boys. My eldest refuses to wears clothes with buttons, zips and badges which rather narrows down his shopping trips
With Boden I can buy quality plain t-shirts and elasticated trousers. Also if he takes a patent dislike to something then I can sell it on Ebay. Recently sold a rather tired pair of tartan baggies for £12 . I am trying to stop buying him tartan baggies as now he is 6 they look a bit stupid.
I'm stuffed then - I like Norfolk for a break, I drive a Range Rover, have a Nanny and nearly 4 children - ah but then we were outbid for the £140k beach hut - oh well 4 out of 5 is not bad!
No idea what is wrong with Boden....... I like it.
ds wears boden
dh wears quite a bit - even <gasp> slouchy pull-ons (but only in pj-type situations - not to wear in our...)
4x4 in the drive
Dorset Cereals muesli in the cupboard
more than average money in the bank
live in home counties
we have stayed in the Bedruthan Steps and Ickworth hotels
I LOVE a brand new season Boden catalogue. Perfect bathroom reading matter. ds likes a look but dd1 (4) really gets into it - we have to look at every page together.
DH is the antithesis of the hearty chaps in the Boden catalogue (cerebral and gentle) and he has no interest at all in clothes. His usual principle in shopping is to buy an exact replica of whatever has worn out and he's replacing. He also loathes self-conscious 'leisure' clothes. But I persuaded him to order a pair of the dreaded drawstring check trousers and he now practically lives in them at home, where they are known as his Rupert Bear trousers. So ner...
Actually Kathy, I haven't seen anything in his catalogue for people your size - perhaps we need to point this out to him, that 6-inch people are being unfairly discriminated against.
Just to go back to Blu's spot-on image of the Boden Brayer ... we don't have a 4 x 4 but do have a Volvo estate .. will that do?
I'm afraid that not much of Boden seems to fit me but I did succumb to a sort of woolly gillet (right word or no?!) - I thought I looked pretty cool at the time of purchase but now realise that I do just look like a dirty blond (well, brown haired if I'm being honest) sheep. Baaa (which isn't that far off braying now, is it).
apeainapod- Yes I'm in Cheltenham, are you close by? Am I going to have to elbow you out of the way next week in the scrum for reduced brushed tartan baggies?
currant - we're in the Lechlade area - we'll be there for 7 weeks over the Summer and then for 3 months from September. Moving back permanently next Summer!
If I wasn't abroad right now I would be attending in full battle gear!!!! A friend went to one last year - she said it was absolutely manic, however she came away with things that didn't even fit her - just because they cost £5!!!!
Dionnelorraine - it is a clothing company that appeals to thirty something yummymummies, it seems to cause a furore everytime it is mentioned, and I would equate the negative reaction to that of skinning kittens or pushing over a toddler or somthig equally horrible!!!
I would love top wear clothes from Boden and spent an hour this morning online trying to find some but they seem to be sold out of everything I like...
My dds have lots of mini boden, I have a bit but dh has none. The girls look flipping lovely in their stripey boden trousers and their cute flower shift dresses
Does anyone else get six million catalogues through the post - I'm sure we could rebuild our front garden wall with them by now? Just realised son 1 has galloped outside in Boden shorts but Tesco top - I wonder what dear Johnnie would make of that in his blurb . . .
. Dh, however is only slightly horrible, as he only owns two items of Boden clothing, both of which were bought by me! 
- I hope you don't live near me,babygrand! 
