Attention, manufacturers of toddler boys' clothes!

[frazzledgirl]

(Inspired by yesterday's trip round H&M, but frankly applies to an awful lot of shops)

I do not wish to dress my lovely son in any kind of garment which labels him 'loud', 'noisy' or 'spoiled'. He isn't. And even if he is, I'd like a chance to fool other people that he isn't

I would like a choice of more than two kinds of shoes.

Ditto hats.

Bright colours are not taboo.

Sludge colours get VERY boring after the first few months.

Sticking a cr*ppy cartoon transfer on a t-shirt (Ben 10/Cars/etc for a two-year-old FFS?) is not the be-all and end-all. And what's wrong with plain t-shirts anyway?

And having had this exact same moan to EVERY mother of a small boy that I know, I might be PFB but I am not alone!

I swear, when I find a retailer that consistently sells decent, colourful, child's clothes without any sh*te transfers or slogans at a reasonable price (i.e not Boden) I will shower money on them... so sick of hunting around for the odd couple of decent bits in each shop.

Ahem. As you were.

DS has this little gem...here

Quite apt, actually

That's lovely. I bought this for last winter.

www.kidsshouldbekids.co.uk/

Good quality, not expensive, colourful clothes for kids.
I have a few things from them and they have worn well...

Can't disagree with anything that's been said. Am I a bit 'touchy' to be a bit worried about the T shirts with 'Here comes trouble' 'Little Monkey' etc. on?

ON THE OTHER HAND, the girls' stuff is almost exclusively pink and frilly now. If their mums want to get them clothes just for knocking about in they must have to look at boys' stuff.

There does seem to be more girl stuff too, esp in Mothercare, where, at least in Stevenage, the girls' stuff is at the front to the left, so you see it as you come in and the boys stuff is to the side and not so obvious. Is this because women are seen as main consumers/shoppers and it's to attract us?

I guess the aforementioned 'slush' colour is khaki ish really isn't it? Our little lad's being lined about for another pointless war in 20 odd years time? OK that's a bit dramatic isn't it? But when you think about it a bit worrying!

The only canvas shoes i can find for DSs are flippin camouflage or have skulls on.

It got so bad last year i bought a loads of plain white tees a and tie dyed them in nice colours for my two.

Has anyone else seen the H&M baby boys' t-shirt with a pattern of burgers and fries.

I have a 6 month old ds and agree totally. You can get bright yellow, blue and green socks for baby boys in boots at the mo' but they still have grey marl stripes... can't be too garish now, can we? Grr.

I dress babysaurus in a lot of pastels tbh, but he mostly wears hand me downs from my friend's 2.5 year old.

This is why I learned to knit. 4 boys. Hopeless. But lots of lovely coloured wool, tie dye is an option as port said and I also make trousers from fleece, doesnt need hemming and just trace round their school trousers and stitch it together. Millions of patterns of fleece available. I have given up on trying to buy nice stuff from shops.

Only problem I have is finding nice wellies, went to asda today and there was 1 type of wellies for boys, size 12 was the biggest, no use at all. Girls had 5 different patterns! WHY???

Arrrrgh - Have to agree wholeheartedly with everything that's been said - I utterly detest all those "cheeky monkey/rascal/terror" logos but my mum insists on buying them whenever she sees them... Every last one of them ends up at an NCT sale or a charity shop - such a waste, but she won't be told!

Tesco's do usually have a 3 pack of plain colourful long sleeve tops each 'season' (I got green white & brown most recently) but again, if you don't get in there pretty sharpish there's nothing left in any sizes 18mths - 4 yrs because Tesco's don't stock enough of them

Add me to the list of exasperated mums.

DS has a thing about soft trousers, don't blame him as all i seem to get are combat trousers with 20 plus pockets, lots of ragged seems and scratchy as hell, made from really stiff/cheap fabric.

Why so many pockets?

I have never had any trouble finding nice boys clothes. I don't like the 'trouble' etc ones but I enjoy buying my DSs clothes as much as my DDs.

This makes me soooooooo mad!!!! Next have stuff covered in skulls and such like when they are passed baby, it is gross. And very Ugh at the burger and fries print, that is gross!!!

Ds's clothes mostly come from Boden, I do not mind that they are slightly more becuase they look cool.

hi frazzledgirl. i totally agree. have you tried zara? we've managed to find some cool clothes, similar price to next, but without the strange wording.
good luck

Hi, I sell organic cotton t shirts for kids on my site www.mimimyne.com and you'll see some nice quality Tee shirts for boys from Green Eyed Monster there. They aren't as cheap as some of the High Street offerings, but the designs are great and the quality means they will last a long time! I have two boys and often think the choice for them is too limited, so I made an effort when setting up my shop to get a good range of boys clothes.

Thanks, Tabitha

My friends website is www.guycollection.co.uk
She started the business for exactly this reason.
hth

Tabitha - I LOVE that chopper t-shirt. It's great. And your nobody puts baby in a corner! But I'd have that in ladies size 12 please!

EVERYONE, Tabitha's site is Adorable. Thanks for linking.

And no, I'm not on commission lol!

Yes yes yes to this whole thread! Infuriates me too. Though I may be a dissenting voice about Boden - IME the tops are generally nice but the trousers are basically 10 variations on the same combat theme.

There was a similar thread last year, where a poster who was/used to be (?) a kids clothing designer explained it: apparently both the lack of creative design and the tiny size of ranges in high st shops just reflected market research .

Market research? Who are they asking, then? Not me or any other mother-of-a-boy that I know...

Have a good mind to send a link to this thread to all High Street stores.

I like Pumpkin Patch

The colours are bright and fun though they are a bit heavy on surfer type stuff, though I quite like that as I find plain t shirts, well a bit plain and there is only so much I can take of stripes.. The t shirts aren't all plain but the stuff on them is not characters or irritating slogans (usually). Also they go up to 11 years old which is great.

Thanks Sycamoretree! I'm glad you like the clothes! The designer can do adult sizes for most of her tshirts, so do message me if you'd like the "Baby" one and I'll see if I can get it for you. Thanks to all, Tabitha

got some lovely bright polo shirts and check shirts in Zara kids yesterday for my boys. the mannequins had them all layered up and they look fab.
i also like getting scandiwegian clothes for boys... nordickids.co.uk is very good.

A mum of girls here to add another moan - girls clothes are often so impractical! So I get boys clothes and I hate the sludgy colours too. Conspiracy theory alert I think that this stupid polarisation of childrens clothes was designed to make it harder for us to pass clothes on and force the 50% of Mums with more than one gender to buy two completely different wardrobes for them.

It makes me laugh,how difficult is it to make bright coloured clothes without logos.

If any Tom Dick or Harry made a range of plain nice coloured Tshirts without their shop name, a cartoon or slogon on they'd clean up, we'd all be there buying up the lot.

In previous years I've trawled every catalogue,my local town for nice cheap boys clothes not anymore. I now just get some from Boden in huge sizes to get 2 years out of it then cheap supermarket plain shorts,jeans etc to counteract the exorbitant price I've payed for the rest. I'm not bothering to go anywhere else it's too exhausting. I do like some of H&M and M&S for dd though and the odd H&M t-shirt,jeans for the boys.

I went through the Next catalogue this summer mentally crossing out the slogon stuff,the cartoon stuff, the stuff with Next written all over it,the Barbie pink stuff,the tarty stuff etc. It left me with a couple of pairs of shorts and 1 T-shirt I'd actually considering buying. I was also at some of their prices, they actually had boys shorts in there for £16!!!!!

As has already been said I would gladly spend money elsewhere, but the fact is other than the odd supermarket bits Boden sell the most. These other sites are lovely albeit pricey but I don't have the time to buy just 1 garment. I need a site that sells the whole lot like Boden.

It is a nightmare, I have a daughter and have no problems getting really lovely clothes for her just about everywhere. Then I had my son and realised why friends with sons had been so envious that I had a girl.
Everything is a slogan or franchise of a cartoon.

Tat tat tat.

La Redoute/Vertbaudet has some good things, and it's not all blue or beige.

Got some stuff from French supermarkets in Calais last year, that was ok too.

I bought DD some boys' navy combats from M&S recently as I was so sick of pink. They were nice and soft, but pricey and have really annoying gusseted pockets stuck on the front of the legs which are a bastard to iron.

Another plea to manufacturers - leave the fecking stupid difficult-to-iron pockets OFF! Two-year-olds don't need pockets. It should make them cheaper too.