to be offended at the lack of floorspace and style for boys clothing

[KissingAFool]

I get upset about this every time I go shopping for my loving boys. Wall to wall girls stuff, you can really pick a style and run with it, the variety is amazing. Across all shops. Across all budgets.

However the boys offerings beyond the toddler stages are so dull, limited, stylish. I love shopping, love clothes and am trying to raise my kids with a healthy interest in their appearance but its so hard when there's nothing I even want to see on my boys and they moan that it's all boring.

Its just feels short sighted and discriminatory to have eg one aisle of stuff for boys vs three if girls which is what I'm faced with.

Are ANY shops geared towards equal floorspace? Because beyond h&m and zara it feels extremely one sided and I actually feel quite hurt!

[SomewhatIdiosyncratic]

I tend to buy clothes for my DSs from Morrison's (nutmeg), Sainsburys (TU) and the outdoors shops like Mountain Warehouse. I rarely bother going around most high street children's departments now, particularly as DS1 is picky. He lives in shorts, t-shirt/ short sleeve shirt all year. He's also slim built so clothes are too short by inches by the time he fills waists and shoulders. This puts a lot of styles like tracksuit bottoms out of the question. I got away with more unisex "girls" items when he was a toddler.

Recently, his coat needed replacing. He's got a good quality ski jacket, but is is in sludge colours that renders him invisible on a dull day. There was blue available, but I was battling against fit, hoods on poppers and other style problems. Go Outdoors had some really bright options but he wasn't impressed. He's very conservative, and being the only one in his class not in blue/sludge is not his style. Peer pressure contributes to the cycle of lack of choice.

[Julju]

Ha, waving back, LemonPledge!

Agree re: the spiral of a self fulfilling prophecy and I actually went to H&M yesterday and after scouring the kids section for some decent boys wear and only seeing the usual chinos (no ta, I wouldn't want to be bolting round soft play in those!) and boring t shirts scooped up a load of nice grey/blue/printed girls wear and was about to go to the till until I found a load of beautiful boys stuff hidden at the back of the boring crap which had presumably been shoved there because it had almost sold through completely.

Would be interesting to know what the growth is like on some of these Instagram brands and smaller brands which are sold on sites like SydneyBoo, etc. - there's definitely a trend at the moment for more bold, confident prints and colours and less of the cutesy London/Zoo/Dinosaur stuff