Gender neutral children's clothing

[alp30]

I am interested in what parents think about gender neutral clothing for their children to wear?

What sort of themes and colours would you consider be best for both genders?

I am really interesting in hearing everyone's thoughts and views on this. :)

Agree the extras on girls' clothes are the biggest issue. Easier to put a girl in boys clothes than a boy in girls clothes generally (I pretty much always put the girls in 'boys' jeans). Although my DS has worn purple cords with heart pockets when he was 2, and wears quite a few handmedowns that's because I have always tried to buy the most neutral stuff possible. But what I find is that even something that is acceptable for the DDs won't necessarily be acceptable for DS when he gets to their age. So, e.g. DD1 has a space t-shirt from Boden. It's french navy so is a 'girly' blue and Saturn has a pink ring and the stars are glittery. On a 7 year old girl it looks gender neutral, on a boy the same age it would look girly.

DD1 is 7 and choosing to dress more neutrally herself, that means plain jeans and a t-shirt most of the time. DD2 (6) on the other hand refuses to wear jeans (she'll grudgingly wear brightly coloured trousers) and wants to wear a skirt or dress the whole time. So we've got to consider what the kids like as well. And they are well attuned to what version of red/green/blue/yellow is for girls (the more pastel versions but also some brights) and which is for boys (the sludgier versions).

I didn't know what sex baby I was having and wanted gender neutral clothes. Like others, a lot of the 'neutral' stuff is cream or yellow with cutesy ducks and bears and stuff. Very little is in bright or bold colours with striking designs like stars/stripes etc. I like animal designs but I like jungle themes with a bit more of a bold look. Baby clothes are often very boring, I think it's easier to find interesting neutral stuff for older kids so I would target your designs to the baby market.

By the way - I had a boy and some of my favourite things for him are denim, greys and multicoloured stripy stuff or the type of thing with multicoloured dinosaurs or whatever. This kind of thing can be hard to find though in a sea of baby blue...

Black and white like Whistle and Flute stuff and the Scandi brands like Smafolk.

Oh don't get me started on denim/joggers.

Also grim.

I think shops are cottoning on slowly and there are more neutral bright coloured things but a lot of the time only for newborn up to a year. Next, mothercare etc all had brightly coloured stripey, starred babygrows when my DD was born. Now she needs bigger clothes I find myself either buying blue girls clothes(anything without bows, sequins)or just buying boys stuff without tractors, dude written on it. H&m basics are great, lots of plain colours, stripes and stars but most other neutral colourful stuff is frugi and the like and its so pricey. I'm not into pastel pink or things that say mummy's little princess and she looks nice in blue and green so I just get what I like and don't really worry if its for a boy or a girl.

One thing I really struggle to get are jackets/coats that aren't expensive and aren't pink. All the girls one seem to be pink and purple and all the boys ones have trucks on round here. I just want a simple waterproof coat for DD that's red or blue and nice. I saw a boys one in next that was red with stars on(don't know why it was just in the boys section) but I think it was 30quid!

I have a 9 week old DD, and love to dress her in bright comfy babygrows. Stripes and stars and animals. I feel that primarily she should be comfy, but as its me that's looking at her all day I choose things that please my eyes rather than designs that scream "I am a baby girl!" I already know she is a baby girl.

In fact just about to buy some Christmas presents from here www.nippazwithattitude.com/cool-kids-and-baby-clothing.html

Def gender neutral!

Definitely agree about the extras on girls clothes. Dd had lots of things in colours and patterns I would use again if we had a boy next time, but without fail they have bows or ruffles, grrr!

We didn't find out the gender, and I couldn't find anything new in new born or 0-3 that wasnt white or grey. I ended up dressing her far more in second hand stuff because the multi coloured patterns looked so much nicer.

Have you contacted the campaign group Let Clothes Be Clothes? They campaign in gender neutral clothing. I'm sure you'd have an interesting conversation about gender neutral clothing and also they can let you know about shops which sell gender neutral clothes,.which might provide some inspiration.

If you Google you should find their website (sorry a pain to link on this phone! ) and they have a facebook and Twitter accounts too IIRC.

What's gender neutral? All colours except pink or pastel, but even then they can be gender neutral in the right styles.

I would love to know where to get bright basics that don't cost the earth. I used to get DD's entire wardrobe of new clothes from.H&M, but now she's moved out of the baby and toddler range, it's all pastels and cute kittens. Yuck!

Tie-dye :)

Dungarees, jeans, cords, shorts, tshirts, hoodies and jumpers.

Animals and other images from nature - hills, rivers, forests, beaches. The sun and moon.

Stripes, geometric shapes, stars

I didn't find out if i was having a boy or a girl, and really had to shop around to find neutral stuff. I got some basic whites, white/grey with multi coloured stripes or elephants on from mothercare. White with zoo animals from next. Boots were the best though, lively bright course, stars and stripes . I kept being asked if he was a boy or a girl for the first two months so it wasn't obvious from.his clothes. Sadly everything we were bought was blue. Mostly baby blue too.

My DS2 was always a cat person rather than a dog person. However designers seemed to dictate that cats were for girls and dogs for boys, it used to make DS2 very sad as he didn't want a pink or frilly top but he did want the kitten that it had on the front.

However I have to say that even 10- 14 years ago when mine were pre school, I didn't have too much difficulty buying them bright non blue or pastel clothes, although I didn't have any objection to diggers or trucks or cars or dinosaurs as DSs liked those. They had lots of bright yellow, red, green, orange and purple tops and jackets and that was just from normal high street stores (e.g. Next, Adams, H&M, Zara etc) and Supermarket brands such as George and F&F. Some had motifs - writing wasn't really such a big thing then - or they were plain or stripey.

Nowadays when buying gifts for family I've found that next do great sets of bright babygros and Sainsburys is also pretty good for nice bright clothes for little ones.

I quite like these:

www.next.co.uk/x6d766s6

and these:

www.next.co.uk/x6d3754s1

and these:

www.next.co.uk/g41540s3

and these:
www.next.co.uk/x6d2750s6

I was going to suggest Next!
They usually have tshirts and trousers in the girls section that could easily pass on a boy without looking "girly"

When did 'unisex' became 'gender neutral'?

Because there really wasn't the same level of separation between girls and boys clothes in the 1960s/70s when I was growing up. Clothes were (relatively) more expensive, and so hand-me-downs were expected (except for dresses/skirts).

So "retro" clothing might be worth a look. Brighter colours, basic shapes, practical garments.

Though of course a fair number of garments could be put on either a boy or a girl, but you wouldn't necessarily realise it, as clothes are displayed by sex. They could instead be displayed instead by garment type (until teen ranges, where you do need to adjust the cut).

It really annoys me that all clothing with anything vaguely scientific or mechanical on is targeted at boys. I recently bought DD some "boys" pjs with rockets on because she likes rockets and she adores them, wants to wear them all the time.
Saw a girls' t shirt on Boden website last night with planets on and I was amazed and delighted, first item like that I've ever seen aimed at girls.

It's not just the fabric patterns and colours that are sharply gendered in most readily available clothing.

Trousers in the "girl" section will be a skinnier fit giving the wearer less flexibility and range if they want to climb trees etc. Even if a top isn't pink with sparkles it will be a much more figure-hugging cit than a "boy" top in the same size and will often have tiny little "puffs" at the shoulders to make sure it looks "girly".

It is insanely difficult to buy gender neutral clothing unless you go to these specialist websites where each item is £30+. My budget is more asda and charity shop so I usually just have to suck it up.

Bright would be good. Just doing designs without making them mini adult clothing shapes. Girls' clothing often has frills on the sleeves or collar for no reason, making the boys' section really the only unisex option without raising eyebrows. Even pink doesn't have to be girly, DS has had pink t-shirts (from boys' section) and it can make up part of a rainbow. I once bought him a girls' t-shirt which was purple, the sleeves were normal, the print was something about hippy music, there was a tiny clue at the back of the neck where there was a one button detail which looked slightly out of place, but nobody really noticed.

Cats & Cartwheels have some nice things which aren't horiffically expensive. www.catsandcartwheels.com/ Unfortunately not much of a range yet, but I think they've not been going long.

Worth noting though that I NEVER buy white tops for my DC because they just get stained and trashed too easily. They look lovely in a catalogue, but they really aren't practical.

If you look at the colour palettes used for girls' and boys' clothes it seems like the darker greens, lime green and royal blues and oranges are restricted to boys whereas yellow and mint green and purple are restricted to girls, with a fairly even split of navy and red and to some extent brown (boys get more brown, by a long shot) Also girls seem to get spots while boys get stripes, which just seems totally bizarre but once you see it, you can't unsee it!

It would be great to mix up those colours so that they aren't so separated.

Actually, I was just browsing through the Next catalogue ready to be all offended at the lack of clothing in the girls' section it would be possible to dress a boy in without raised eyebrows, but I've been pleasantly surprised. They also have a FAB unisex-looking set with crayons on - but they have put the pointless one button detail on the back of the neck of the t-shirt for NO reason

And shorts? In November? To wear over tights/leggings? Why? I had no idea that girls' clothing was so complicated. Boys are easy. One top, one bottom. Done. This seems madness, and surely it contributes. I had assumed that it was the same for girls, you could buy tops + bottoms, or dresses. I had no idea that there was all of this layering stuff going on.

*BertieBotts" those crayon motif tshirts are really sweet I bought my daughter a few - I think that range is on a 3 for £15 deal (it was when I bought then anyway). I got her a navy blue, long-sleeved one with a white bicycle on the front, and a green one with crayons, and a pink one with a cat They are great for layering now it's cold!!

bertie shorts over leggings are great! You can wear them all year round if you get denim ones.

I quite like the fact there's more choice available for girls. My daughter has a clothes sensitivity. She's getting a bit more tolerant as she gets older but up until starting school the only thing she'd wear was leggings - preferably old ones with holes in and with all the labels removed. There's no way she'd have worn jeans or trousers and she would have complained about being too hot in jogging bottoms.

I went in a shop the other day called Okaidi and I loved the way it was laid out. I dress dd in all kinds of things. She has some girly things and she has neutral things too but it's more about comfort so if I put her in a dress it's usually cotton jersey as opposed to a polyester taffeta monstrosity.

Anyway this shop had everything laid out around the edge in outfits half of it very girly and the other half more boyish with the centre of the shop full of separates in plain colours. Very reasonable too.I bought dd some jeggings in pink because she looks good in that colour but they had them in colours like brown and mustard and jade green. I just liked the concept. They are extremely good quality by the way and cheap too.

When dd was a baby I didn't mind most of the neutral things I just prefer grey or white to beige and cream and I like bright primary colours too and I have another baby on the way and I'll be doing the same. John Lewis have some nautical themed sets of sleepsuits which I'll be ordering regardless.

Boots often have some good baby stuff in bright colours - DD has had some lovely stuff from there. From what I've seen their older children's clothes don't fall straight down the pink/blue divide, which is nice.

Asda seems to be one of the worst culprits - their baby section is so grim! A straight pale pink/pale blue divide. I did get DD a little blue floral pinafore but it took a bit of rooting to find it!

For me, like others have said, I love bright colours. DD does have some tops that are pink but they're bright, and mix well with different coloured leggings. At the minute I'm dressing her in a few bits from H&M - leggings and dresses - they have some great polka dot ones. I really like pinafores, long sleeved vests and tights, but pinafores seem a bit tricky. She has a couple of denim-type ones though. She's nearly 6 months.

I'm about to go into town this afternoon to try get her some tops actually - just after some plain long sleeved ones. I'll report back if I find any good ones!