Dear manufacturers of clothing for small boys

[monkeymamma]

I am not a dude, or indeed a little man. I may well be cuter than my daddy, or better looking than my daddy, but I do not judge it seemly to declare this publicly. My younger sibling, when he or she arrives, is unlikely to refer to me as his or her "big bro".

My behaviour, within the limits of the capabilities of a two year old, is reasonable if not on occasion exemplary. Therefore I would suggest that slogans which draw attention to it's less pleasing aspects, viz "little but loud", "here comes trouble", "cheeky monkey", "little monster", et cetera, are not appropriate.

I am not in the army, I am not a surfer, a trucker, or a rapper. And I am far too young to have heard of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, or Guns n Roses, whatever they are.

Like most human beings, I don't suit nasty, dreary, washed out colours such as: faded navy, dung brown, sun bleached green or barely-burgundy. Ditto burnt orange and sludgy beige. I know that the idea of using bright, gorgeous colours and attractive, inventive patterns similar to those used by your colleagues in the girlswear department fills you with worry, but I promise that most mums and dads and other purchasers of children's clothes don't share these anxieties.

And that is all.

Yours,
Monkeytoddler

totally agree with the NO skulls wanted. Horrid. It seems to change whe they are about 6. Horrible dull colours too.

Congrats on your new human vivipru!I'm sure you do a great job of giving the public what they bafflingly want whilst making it actually nice and tasteful :-)
Eagleray that's a great tee shirt and cute baby.
Mozze thanks for the info.
Mrsmook I remember that stage being difficult, ds was a big baby till he turned 2 and is now very average sized. The annoying thing is that there are lots of 'separates' (tee shirts, trousers) but I found until ds was walking the button under type body suits, vests etc were best (more secure - otherwise he always had a lot of cold tummy on show).

Yes yes to frugii and Toby Tiger. Love them, and no mini me in sight!

Dear monkey toddler
Your mum is over thinking it in an angsty mc way.mum buy what she like,its not hard
You see in retail the consumer has choice,if range is doozey it won't sell

DrCoconut - we have the opposite problem in that trouser legs are miles too long. He's 21 months and just going into 18-24 month clothes. Tops are fine, as are the trouser waistbands, but we have to roll up his trousers twice to stop him tripping over them!

I always assume the skulls are a pirate thing (yo ho ho etc). Seriously, as a mum of a DS and DD with a fairly serious ( to the point of pissing of the GP) anti pink thing, I have no problem finding clothes for both that don't offend me. High street is fine, but if you have the budget, Boden, Jojo, etc will do you nice lovely wholesome stuff..

Adjustable waistbands,asda,tesco.tackles the slim waist issue
As consumer vote with your feet,but i stoically accept the lock up your daughter stuff sells

The Scandinavian brands do lovely bright clothing. Can often find nice stuff on zullily

I thought I'd find you on this thread Vivi we've debated this matter before.

I'd like to know if the 70% of sales is actually full price, I have a hunch the styles much loathed by OP and me are more likely to shift in sale.

OP I like Gap for everyday. If you can get past the skulls why?? The polos and shorts are great quality. DS had on a navy polo and pink shorts today.

Don't get me started on boys footwear though. My DF 86 has cooler sandals than Next.

i am 16 months old and therefore unlikely to support football

im not skinny making skinny jeans for someone in a nappy is wrong

im not fat please make your drawstrings on your trousers work or at least make the elastic - elastic enough to stay up

whats with the pockets?

whats with the side pockets with no way of buttoning them? do you have any idea how many times ds has fallen over trying to do something with a flappy pocket?

i do not wish to wear my trousers low its irritating

TSSDNCOP I feel your pain re footwear! Have only just begun looking at shoes for DD but have quickly established what the rules are: sludgy shit for boys and various shades of pink with flowers on for girls.

There are some fab overseas brands though, plus good old Kickers in bold colours

Enough wuth the cutsey wutsey pretending lil bubba wrote the post.its lame

I like no added sugar for my lovely son but try to get them when there's offers on as I find it quite expensive but the cloth are lovely and always wash nicely (even though their logo is a bunny with cross bones!).

The average age of a children swear designer is well under 30. Ditto the buyer. They are often a couple of years out of university. They have no children. They like doing childrenswear because it's fun and cute. None of them have a clue about what parents want, and tbh, they don't care. As long as it sells that's all that counts.

Yep, that's what I thought. Certainly the childrenswear buyers I used to know are all now in adult departments now that they're turning 30, getting married, etc.

Humph.

Bottom line in retail,is does it sell
Not just kids clothing

DS has always had lovely bright (mostly) clothing, though I have had to sift out the not so nice stuff. He mostly had Me Too stuff when he was a toddler, lovely colourful designs..

Now I would say his clothes are mostly dinosaurs, sharks and nice striped polos. We did go into Primark last week9dont get there very often) for a specific shirt and tried to get him to choose some other stuff...he vetoed it all apart from one t-shirt. I so much preferred him not being too fussed about his clothes

Loads of lovely boys clothes in next, jeans in denim blue. T shirts in stripes or plain no problem as far as I can see. Ds does own a shirt with tiny little skull and crossbones on tho, it's cool, I'd wear it!

DeakyMom I took to cutting off the pockets when DS was a toddler...they were a pain when they got screwed up and took ages to dry

Lunar and anyone with skinny boys...H+M twill coloured trousers are the best, also when Aldi do their boys jeans, they are very slim cut and are th eonly pair of jenas that look nice on DS without masses of pulling in

Viv any chance the moustache thing is on its way out ? it gives me the creeps

Oh dear, DS has all the tops in the OP & I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a flying fuck nor does his Rolling Stones fan mother & she wouldn't have been that if it wasn't for her father...
Honestly struggle to even give a 'meh' over these things, it's a top

how about this?

Gorgeous items,for a niche prosperous Perhaps the odd item,not whole wardrobe.

OPS I totally agree with you about the slogans.

Personally I want my little boy to have cute little boy clothes with dinosaurs, space ships, loveable animals etc. He need not be a mini teenager there will be plenty of time for that.

When my dts where born the boys clothing was in all the colours of mud and other bodily waste with the exception of bile with is mainly a lovely shade of green, I digress.

I brought a lot of clothes from verbadee? (Sic)
As I noticed whilst they had girl and boy the clothes where actually the same (obviously no dresses or skirts in boys section)

I brought loads of girls dungarees and trousers for my boys they looked fab, I continued the course with other companies for several years, worked for me.

I know have 9 year olds who happily wear dark pink, red (my fave suits both their colouring) bright yellow, purple, light and dark blue.

A friend bought DS a top with 4 large skulls on it. It's going straight to the charity shop. My Mum died 18 months ago and I find skulls on kids clothes just awful.

We've got quite a good clothing line over here in Canada called Peekaboo Beans. Electric lime and bright blue are the colours this summer. There's a great second hand/vintage market too.