To think there's always more clothes for girls than boys?

[ohflowerofscotland]

Why is this? There was a huge baby sale in my local Asda. Rails and rails of baby clothes but not that much for boys.

This was the case for non sale items too. It really bugs me.

You would think retailers would cater just as much for boys than girls.

There's more girls clothes but it's all less practical. I needed to get my DDs some shorts for Beaver/Cub camp. Girls shorts... Thin, barely cover bum and often pale coloured. Boys shorts... Nearly knee length, thick. And in flouresent yellow. Turned into their favourite item of clothing this summer.

It is true
Yet most of the baby girls clothes are pink though.... so there might be more clothes but if you dont like to dress your dd up as fairyfloss your options are still limited.
Although so many boys clothes have dinosaurs etc...
Mm..

I'm frustrated with the sludge colours offered to boys. It depends on the year but mine are now 5 and 8 and both had to wear sludgy green, brown and grey at some point.

I hate slogan tshirts which doesnt help.

There are many smaller companies who are popular for selling leggings that aren’t listed as ‘girls’. That have no bows or frills but cool prints that appeal to many. I wish clothes were organised by type (all trousers together) and that bows and frills were not put on the brightly coloured stuff.

Yes, DD pretty much exists in those leggings! We have owl ones, space ones, several dinosaur ones, unicorn, weather, etc. Blade and Rose are great for funky patterns and prints and JoJo Maman Bebe leggings are good too. They do matching tops too.

Yes very annoying it's hardships seem to think boys don't need to wear clothes

It's like shops*

Agree with lack of choice for boys. I also hate it when a perfectly nice pair of dungarees/t shirt etc is ruined by having a hideous gurning animal plastered on the front!

I second H&M and TKmaxx for nice boys clothes at reasonable prices.

Don't be fooled into thinking that a larger volume actually means more choice either. hmm

I agree with this - I have a one year old boy and was recently buying a present for a baby girl and the section is certainly bigger but I found it much harder to find something I liked - but then I wear a lot of sludge colours (!) and also bright primary colours myself, hate pastels, and didn't want to buy the baby girl anything she wouldn't be able to move properly in (which ruled a surprisingly large amount), and I love a good dungaree (for both DS and me!). I ended up getting some very nice unisex stuff.

Totally agree. It's nothing new though, my oldest is almost 17 and I noticed it when he was a baby. Rails and rails of girls stuff, hardly anything for boys.

We have a Matalan clearance store near here where the ex-sale stuff goes to die. Sometimes you get amazing bargains when they need to have a clear out. 13 year old DD gets loads as their children's range goes up to 15 and she can look at small ladies' clothes too. For the boys, you're lucky if you find some trousers in weird colours like yellow or turquoise.

I also think it's a bit of a myth that all older boys are dressed in branded sportswear.

So true OP!! I get annoyed aswell.

I heard about Asda doing a massive sale and was going to head down and then thought what’s the point, every time I go it’s full of girls items and maybe one boy item if I’m lucky on the end of the rail!

I really wish there was a reasonably priced store selling plain colourful clothes across the rainbow, not with pictures or fiddly bits, just good plain t shirts, leggings, trousers.

Does it exist?

I think most stores give more space to womenswear than menswear too, men's clothing is just less varied, for good or for ill.

I have two boys and I actually quite enjoy shopping for boys' clothes.

I have a rule of thumb now - look specifically for yellow, orange, green and purple. See what else comes up in between, especially for multipacks. (I find red and blue are overrepresented, white impractical, black just looks odd on babies - use sparingly) Get second hand bundles, weed out what I like, pass the rest on (charity shop/clothing donation bin). You end up with some grey/brown/blue from this but that's not a bad thing, because those colours tend to go well with brighter things so you can do a mix and match and not spend masses of money on the bright colours which are expensive - a few nicer pieces will do you for a whole age span. Whereas I think with girls' clothing I'd be overwhelmed by all the pretty patterns and forget to buy anything plainer to go with them and they would end up looking like a curtain factory explosion.

It can be fun to dig out the more exciting things from the mass of grey, brown and blue.

I do also have some girls' stuff for him - mainly trousers, a dark pink pair with dinosaurs on, light grey with rainbows, stars and hearts, a couple of bold flower patterns. Plus a couple of vests and sleepsuits that I meant to dye red and purple, which came out luminous pink. He pulls them off just fine, especially when put with a plain or "masculine" top (though the other day he had the dinosaur trousers on with the pink vest as a t-shirt and it looked lovely).

Cyclemad - try M&S, their toddler/baby multipacks work out well like that plus are really good quality for the price, and although they have a lot of naff character stuff, they also have plenty of plain. H&M for joggers and hoodies, Next for t-shirts and shorts. These seem to be the specific areas they do well at respectively. And I used to be a big fan of Boots' bamboo toddler socks, but I don't know if they're as good any more.

I’ve always noticed this in Asda in particular. I still don’t shop there for clothes despite having a girl now, as it’s just aisles and aisles of dusty pink which I hate.

I really wish there was a reasonably priced store selling plain colourful clothes across the rainbow, not with pictures or fiddly bits, just good plain t shirts, leggings, trousers.

Does it exist?

If not it needs to!

Just recently got some lovely bits in primark, lots of brights, DS chose himself lots of orange and patterned t shirts. Still had the usual “Miami” or whatever slogans, but lovely colours.

I actually find the opposite. My young teen DD struggles to find anything she likes. She likes Marvel, Jurassic Park and nice, long T shirts.

She doesn't want crop tops, anything with unicorns or pugs on, cold-shoulder T Shirts, teeny shorts, glitter or slogans about how fabulous she is.

We shop in the boys section!

Of course there is, with boys the optios are shorts or trousers for girls its shorts, trousers or dresses so stands to reason there will always be more girls clothes.

I think it is partly because girls often get gifted clothes whereas boys don't. My 3 year old dd got shed loads of clothes fo a religious festival bleherwas her brother got given lots of small toys. Also as boys get older there does seem to be a tendency for parents to lean towards more branded sportswear. My nephew is almost 5 and his mum has started to shop at sports direct instead of mothercare or next because he has started to get an awareness of brands and a lot of kids his age are wearing them. Yanbu though I buy for ds from supermarkets, high street and more upmarket shops too and he also wears jeans that his sister has outgrown as well.

I don't think the Y6+ thing is only a problem for boys. It's annoying that Sainsbury's don't go below a size 8, it's not that tiny or unusual for someone to be a 4 or 6, especially when they are the size 8s and 10s used to be. And bigger sizes in the kids range are often missing, and they only go up to age 12 anyway.

I find ASDA quite good, Zara for boys but I can't usually afford that and they tend to have a lot of nice boys clothes in TKMaxx during Xmas other than that I can't find much.

Supply and demand- from years of managing kids departments, I can promise you that girls clothing takes significantly more money than boys clothing. I worked in next and Zara, and Zara in particular has a very wide spread of boys clothing, lots of styles and colours, with a much closer space ratio on the shopfloor than most other retailers. But still, there would be less than 5 weeks a year when boys clothes took as much/ more than girls clothes.

Even with the wide mix of clothes available for boys- and by that I mean denim shop, basics, smart casual, fashion trends, bright colours, summer/winter- we still had a period of about 6 months where week after week, the bestselling product by far was a certain style of slim fitting jogging bottoms. Compare this to a girls section where the product and bestselling style changed week after week, and could be a £4 pair of shorts or £40 faux leather jacket, but the boys and their parents consistently chose a pair of £10 joggers to wear, in one of 3 colours.

Have you thought of the reverse of this question, and asked why boys and men have about 70%+ of the available space in sports stores? Supply and demand.

I moved from the supermarkets to H&M for cheaper clothes for nursery this year. Previously I’d found Sainsbury’s really good for my baby girl for multipacks but this year I struggled to find cheap clothes for nursery that weren’t bum skimming shorts etc. I think once you go up the price bracket to JoJo, frugi etc you do get a nice selection for boys and girls.

Thinking back, there are some Scandi companies that do plain clothes in bright colours for babies and kids.
Yes to the lack of clothes for 13 yo onwards boys. DS is in XXS men’s stuff, which is still too big.

I find NEXT and HM pretty even (Have a DS)

Boys tend to have a better choice of functional stuff though eg - sturdy sandals rather than strappy, rash vests rather than bikinis, better school shoes.

Wow, KnobJockey - that's incredibly interesting, thank you for sharing. And very true WRT how I dress my boys. If I ever have a girl, I will report back if my style changes - I know my friends with girls seem to say dressing girls is more complicated, because there are more options for clothing which have to be more carefully put together, whereas for DSes I generally buy t-shirts, trousers, shorts and hoodies (+ pants for potty trained/vests for babies) - maybe the occasional pair of dungarees, which essentially do the same job as trousers/shorts anyway. In winter they wear t-shirt, trousers, hoodie. In summer they wear t-shirt and shorts. Every day. Aside from clashing colours/patterns, every t-shirt goes with every trouser/short so it's always easy, I don't need a huge amount of things (just enough to wash) and I stick to that formula for buying clothes. Joggers are great because they are comfy, easy on/off, colourful and wash well. If I have 5 pairs of trousers/shorts and 10 tops, they usually have 30+ outfits, so I don't get bored of their clothes and want to buy more.

I like to think that if I have a girl I will stick to just as simple a system of tops and bottoms to mix and match, but according to friends, many of whom are just as uninterested in fashion trends as I am, it is simply not that simple and I know with my own clothes it isn't - I have tops which are such varying shapes they just can't be worn with a variety of bottoms without looking silly. Shorts/jeans/skirt/joggers/leggings/trousers (for me) are all totally different requiring different styles of top, and if it's the same for girls' clothing then I could see how you would end up needing more than 10 t-shirts and 5 bottoms just for different combinations of outfits, and that's not even getting into things like tights, cardigans and dresses.