Clothing for girls

I don’t know any boys who wear 5 piece suits either, to be fair. I’d consider that to be a fairly niche clothing preference.

I find shoulder pads empowering...I miss the 80's.

Do clothes need to be empowering?

No; but they do need to not be disempowering.

My daughter loves pandas and she used to wear a really cute panda hat/scarf.

My daughter got into metal when she was about 15 years old so out went the clothes from New Look and in came the clothes from Drop Dead, Grindstore and EMP. Thankfully black suits her.

They do have some feminine clothes, otherwise it's clothes either sex could wear but made in a women's fit.

I never dressed my daughter in pink when she was young because she has auburn hair and yellow or blue suited her best. As soon as she was old enough to express a preference she wanted to wear pink and purple. She was always very girly, now she's girly in black. She sometimes has blue hair too but not a TRA!

Since they were 2.5years, my DDs have refused to wear dresses and anything particularly 'girly'. No bows, flowers, pink, frilly etc. I'm not sure where that attitude has come from - I'm not into frills etc but I wear a mix of dresses, skirts, trousers, jeans, and I'm comfortable in pink.

Anyway, generally DD2 (6) wears shorts/jeans and t-shirts. But this year she became interested in tailored suits this year. Again - I don't know why. She just did. After months of this, via the internet I showed her some women in tailored trouser suits, shirts, waistcoats - and she was "Exactly - that's what I want". Fair enough. I had to agree that the women looked good.

But do you think I could find an androgynous trouser suit for girls? Zero, zilch, nada. Why not? It's a known style for women, so why not girls?

Eventually I bought her a 5 piece slim suit she loved the look of from a website that offers children's outfits for weddings. It came from the boys section (the girls section of course only had frilly dresses). She loves the suit. She wears it when we have guests, and simply if she feels like it. And bless them, our guests have been very complimentary.

The other thing that irks me is that it is very hard to find girls' jeans that aren't 'skinny jeans'. DD2 hates skinny jeans (and won't touch leggings). Finding straight cut or 'boyfriend' style for girls is nearly impossible, yet it is really easy for women. GAP Kids sometimes has them - in which case I buy multiple pairs.

Why is there such a narrow range for girls when clothing stores know very well that women have wide-tastes and cater for them accordingly?

Once they don’t restrict play or have ridiculous slogans on them, I don’t mind really. I don’t like the automatic assumption that something pink is inferior , just because and for no other reason, it is associated with girls. I don’t think green Tractor t shirts are automatically superior, just by virtues of not being pink.

My daughter aged 10 has a nice tshirt from Pep and Co that says 'Girls can do anything'. However she also has loads of Pokemon tshirts, minecraft ones, a green and white stripey one so she can 'Cos Play' a particular character from an online game plus lots of unicorns and llamas. Do clothes need to be empowering?

There is a great twitter thread right now (I've lost the link, can't find it, other people might have it?) which starts off with a mum who's asking for postive comments for her daughter who is obsessed with space, but worried that she's wearing a 'boy shirt' because the only clothes that have 'space themes' on are in the boys section in the US stores she shops in.

The post is swamped with people showing fantastic examples of
a) women in STEM, astrophysics and other sciences wearing non-gendered clothes and doing great stuff. (I'm hoping for more women in non-STEM stuff also posting wearing non-gendered clothing!)
b) people providing links to clothes manufacturers who break down the stereotypes currently existing
c) just generally people being great people and making twitter a good thing for once!

I've seen an increasing trend in the last 10 - 15 years of more gender-stereotypical clothing, toys, other stuff.

Magdalen, as usual, knocks it out of the park with her latest youtube film about stereotypical dress being sexist.

Mine are climbers - indoor sport & trees, walls etc i find the key is footwear. All mine wear barefoot shoes & wellies or watershoes (basically barefoot but cheap!) & therefor can do anything. I also teach mine that pants cover your genitals so you can cartwheel in public - you dont need shorts as well.

I make 90% of their clothes so colours & prints arent a problem. I like landsend (sale - there is nearly always a sale) for plain leggings & some fab science t shirts (cross section of the earth type things).

As she gets a bit older, outdoorsy shops eg mountain warehouse are very good for clothes kids can do stuff in. Mountain warehouse usually has good practical kids footwear
www.mountainwarehouse.com/kids/footwear/ - note that most styles are simply 'kids' with a choice of colours. So a girl can have pink or not as she wishes, with no sacrifice of functionality.

Or a site like Muddy Puddles - a good set of waterproofs (also mudproof!) is essential.

But on a hot day, a little girl in a cotton frock and sensible sandals (as above) or 'doodles' type shoes can be perfectly comfortable and able to play freely. So long as it's washable or you don't care about a bit of mud or grass stain.

If you want to empower girls, don't make it about their clothing.

I think the idea behind STEM based clothing patterns is supposed to be empowering as people might start a conversation about that topic with the child rather than 'don't you look pretty in that dress'. Slogans for a non reader whether it's 'princess' or 'femininist' is for the parents, not the child. Although the child may be acted differently towards based on the slogan, I suppose.

I did wonder if you meant empowering OP but not sure how children or babies can be empowered by clothing

My DD (pre schooler) now will only wear dresses and skirts
Unlike me who only wears trousers and owns one dress
I don't find that simple dresses are a hindrance at all. Most of hers are cotton ones e.g. like the 3 for 2 H and M ones. It's a hindrance if they are wearing stuff that they aren't allowed to get dirty I think. I do draw the line at flouncy, fussy dresses as she is a very messy and active child

What’s positive clothing?

I am careful in my decisions of what my children wear. But I include them too. Their baby pictures are full of black babygros ( I know, I somehow thought that was cool) but as my daughters grew they took genuine delight in colour, sparkle, pink etc. I did realise that dressing them in boys clothes, dark colours or unisex clothes wasn’t really empowering for them. It was dampening them down, I thought. So I’m totally transformed in the issue. Now it’s bright girlie colours and prints. Also comfy and never restricting. Pink comfortable runner, flowery heavy leggings, pretty t shirts. They are always allowed to ruin them with dirt or tree climbing. I do love scandi brands, P.O.P. being a favourite. I like good quality brands, I buy in the sales. I do avoid any dodgy slogans or short skirts, but unbelievably their wardrobes are very pink heavy.

I love fred and Noah for gender neutral but colourful and functional clothing, also H&M, frugi and the jools Oliver range at mothercare- fred and Noah is definitely a favourite tho, their leggings are hard wearing, last for ages and have a great resale value

I'm assuming the OP means empowering?

Probably pretty meaningless unless the child in question can actually make sense of what's on them though. Until then good quality comfortable basics are all any child really needs, male or female.

I'm not too bothered about the fact there is 'girls clothes' and 'boys clothes' in terms of their cut but what I do object to is not being able to find anything in darker colours for girls and everything having frills and tassels and sparkly bits on it whilst the boys clothes remain fairly classic.

What are emporing clothes?

I got some great slogan type t-shirts from Zulilly a while ago but it always varies what they've got in their offers and they take an age to come - we've got a few things like "forget princess I want to be a scientist" and similar to counteract the whole "smile and be pretty" shite that dominates girl-marketed clothing.

DD1 has a beloved dinosaur t-shirt from Next (there'll be hell on when she outgrows it) that, even though it comes from the girls section, has managed to avoid the dinosaurs being given fluttery eyelashes and bows on their heads.

Now mine are older they often wear dresses of their own choosing (godsend for after swimming lessons in the summer months to just fling a cotton dress over them and be 99% done) but still spend a lot of time in jeans, legggings, shorts (these can be the real pain to get decent length shorts for girls) and the like - and even their sandals are a type where they can run and climb easily in.

I've never really sought out pretty baby pink stuff (it shows the muck and DD2 was a refluxer extraordinaire!) but had a fair bit bought that I got wear out of - always gone for bright colours with my kids. DD1 now is quite a pink sparkly person, if it's got a unicorn on more the better - but that's her choice and if she's asked to think about if what she's chosen is a sensible choice for what she's going to be doing, she'll tend to think again and revise it somewhat. DD2 - if it's got a superhero on (even though she's utterly oblivious of what superhero's who) or dinosaurs she's so there - she's always been very single minded in what she does and doesn't like.