Campaign for Better Boys Clothes - long and ranty

[BadHair]

This kind of follows on from earlier threads about crappy boys clothes.
I went to Matalan earlier on in search of cheap and cheerful stuff for my dses. There were 8 rows of lovely bright girl's clothes, some of the materials could easily have been unisex had they not been sewn as skirts. Then there were 2, TWO, rows of boys clothes. One of them was made up entirely of nylon England football strips and the other was full of the usual dull blue-green-grey combos. As most mums of boys know, this is the same in most shops, though Next occasionally have better colours.
I flatly refuse to dress my toddlers to look like football hooligans, and the other stuff was so uninspiring that I walked out in disgust.
I know that nicer stuff is available in smaller, individual shops, but why should I have to track these places down when I should be able to get better clothes from the high street biggies? In the past I've seen stripey jumpers in the girl sections that could easily be worn by boys if the ubiquitous pink-and-lilac threads were replaced with perhaps red and purple. So I don't see why I should have to dress my boys in dull cr*p.
SO, to finally get to my point, I'm thinking of petitioning the high street retailers as I'm so fed up with being fobbed off with boring clothes. Does anyone else want to sign up, and if so can you suggest what colours you'd like to dress your boys in?

i know what you mean mines only coming up nine months and we have hell to find clothes for him but i must say primark does a great boys section which is bigger than the girls and the clothes are good quality nice looking and cheap
i personaly think most colors suit except bright pink i have seen boys clothes wih a very light (and i mean i looked twice to make sure)pink in a shirt it was cheaked and it realy set it of

I'll join you in a petition. Perhaps we could put some e-mail addresses here for the bigger stores and all complain?

I'd settle for any bright colours -preferably without pictures of skull etc on them.

Yes yes yes!

The colours I'd like to see more of are red, bright blues (royal blue, for e.g.) and nice sea greeny-blue (these are just what suits my ds).

And less beige and drab muddy greens.

And fewer silly logos/pictures of skulls etc as coppertop says.

I would LOVE to join!!!
I love a good rant about boys' clothes!

I agree. More jolly colours please.

Me too ? more choice, fewer combats! I actually like pastel, traditional nursery colours for my baby because he is just that, a baby. Don't mind brights as well just not blue AGAIN.

Put my name down too!!!

Orange
Navy blue
Red
Bottle green
Bright yellow

NO camouflage!! NO skulls!! NO skateboarding crud (not a skater at 20 mths)!!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I'm in. I refuse to have my two boys, the eldest who is only 6 dressed in clothes bearing skulls with the word death across the front (loads of skulls and crossbones in Next, the one with death across it in BHS. Death...nice !!!!!!!!

evening mudda that makes two of us on the skulls then. Fancy a "death" one ?!!

I'll join! My son is 4. I've found it has got really bad in the last 2 years - he's big for his age and so is in a year older clothes generally.
Brighter colours definately needed - why do boys have to spend their lives in shades of khaki, grey or navy blue? I object to the number of army-type clothes around too, tacky overpriced nylon stuff with superhero pics, everything covered in footballs or nasty logos....I could go on and on.
You can get nicer stuff but it's expensive - gap are good and Boden too for some things. Hennes do have some good stuff but it's hit or miss in our shop what sizes they have left (and it's always like a jumble sale in there with clothes all over the place!) I think Next are a lot better than most of the high street but again they are in the upper price range.
Where do I sign?!

I'll join! I spent the morning unsuccessfully trawling shops for clothes for ds2 (just 5 - tall but very skinny). He had some very bright clothes as a toddler, but he's now grown out of them He's desperate for some bright, stripy shorts for summer. He just refuses to wear the usual boring, dull colours.

I was shocked today how few clothes are available for boys in 100% cotton. And also shocked at how few clothes there are available which are not football/sportswear. My boys, sadly, are not athletic kids ... why should they wear sporty clothes?! Especially nylon/polyester ones .. yuck! One day, no doubt, they'll want to wear them; but at the moment they don't - they want to be kids and wear bright, colourful clothes.

Yes, what is it about skulls? Unfortunately ds(4) has a 'thing' about all things scary and monster-like at the moment so he went straight for the t-shirt with the skull on.

Count me in please!

Have you guys seen Hanna Andersson ? With the super weak USD, the clothes are pretty affordable (even when they charge customs duty -- which they're not supposed to, according to my old postman).

The clothes are excellent and very well made.

Count me in on the petition. Can we get one of the journalists on MN to pitch a feature? Should be tailormade for the baby mags since it would involve parental angst and top advertising potential!

I'd like to dress my ds in yellow, coral, white, sea green, apple green, and perhaps in cheerful prints, but NOT slogans and camouflage. It actually annoys me a bit that so many of his clothes have pockets as well - mine don't - forget the pockets, he's only 4 months old, just choose nicer colours!

I suppose truth is that I should learn to make children's clothes...

if any of you are near a branch of Gymboree they have some rather groovy Hawaiian shirts and other cotton stuff...

Have to say i'm not that thrilled with girls' stuff that's available but maybe i'm just old-fashioned because I don't want my 3 year old to have "babe" emblazoned across her backside. Next is especially bad for this, perhaps to complement the boys in death metal gear?

Agree totally with everyone. Try hard to dress DS in different colours - not just blue and beige. Went shopping today and everything seemed to be football clothes - DS has already got an England strip, don't want his entire wardrobe to be the same.

A shop I like is Pumpkin Patch - but don't know how many there are around. The only one I know of is in Meadowhall.

I really like my ds in blue and in green. I shop from the French catalogues, from a shop that sells posh French clothes (buy a year ahead in the sale) on holiday in France and from the nicer catalogues. He has pale green babycord dungarees, linen shorts with a white linen shirt and pale blue slipover, little jeans worn with a navy and white gingham shirt, a bright red jumper with a spotty dog on it (Gap), and as a tiny baby he wore a lot of white, pale blue rompers, lots of gingham and stripes and a sweet Baby Dior coat in pale blue with a yellow/green satin lining. Also a pale blue knitted matinee jacket and bonnet worn with a cashmere scarf in pink, purple, green, lemon and blue stripes (came with matching hat). And lot of Petit Bateau. I am also a combats/skulls/skater wear refusenik. But then I like blue!

I'm in. My pet hate is logos and I think Next is the worst. I also object to anything with teddies / cute puppies / rabbits on - tacky tacky tacky. The only time I went to Matalan everything had some hideous mouse on, there was hardly any boys clothes, all girls, so I've never been back.

Can I join? I went to M&S the other day and complained that everything had David Beckham on. Also I hate things that say "I'm really naughty" or things to that effect.
I'm currently looking for matching outfits for my Dss for a wedding in the summer and, guess what, I don't want them to be blue! Very difficult.
Pumpkin Patch is good though (the only one in my faily big city?)and Gap, although Gap is a bit pricey for me really

I'm a mother of a dd, but I'd like to sign up, too. Boys clothes are mostly horrible, I agree, but this is only part of the problem, which is the absurd degree of difference between girls' and boys' clothes. I don't want dd to look like a vamp or a frilly little doll and I, too, have retreated in horror from many shops. Why can't we have more unisex clothes for young children? Girls and boys look great in simple, straightforward solids, stripes etc and there are lots of colours which don't scream girl or boy. Why are we so anxious to dress children in such ridiculously stereotypical ways? Friends with older children think that this problem has got worse over the past few years.

I wish I could join, I would if I lived over there. I hate the clothes here in the U. S., too. About 2/3 are for girls, and the boys clothes all have movie, or t. v. or cartoon charachters all over them. I don't want my baby to be a walking advertisement. I have my husband's aunt buy my baby clothes when she goes to China twice a year, otherwise I don't know what I would do. I just got back from playgroup, which is 80% boys, and all of us moms were saying the same thing.

Bump.
I guess the best way for me to organise a petition would be for everyone to e-mail me at sarah dot little at tesco dot net. Was thinking of sending it to: M&S, Next, BHS, Mothercare, Matalan (obviously, grrr), Tesco and Asda. Any others? I don't shop at Gap so don't know whether to include them.

What info do you need in the email badhair ?

Oooh, I'm up and ready to rant about this one!
Military insignia and references are my bugbear. Last winter every item of boys clothes in Adams had something like 'US Airforce' all over it. For a two year old? At the start of the Iraq war?

But I do agree with the people below about the polarisation of girls and boys clothes, the absurd sexualisation of girls clothes, and the assumption that somehow the dirt/puddles/climbing frames that little girls encounter somehow require more delicate, less washable clothes.

I HATE it in Next where one half of the shop is entirely pink and lilac and the other grey and khaki.

Which catalogues, Aloha?