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?

Totally agree and add my full support, why is that boys have to be dressed like little hooligans

Lets tell them (the manufacturers)

Sign me up too!

Ds is almost 1 year and finding decent, attractive clothes for him is getting harder and harder. Hennes is now the only real option as far as I'm concerned and even then you have to pick your way through rows and rows of Disneyfied rubbish to get to the good stuff. Maybe I'm a snob but my baby is not going to be a walking billboard for Disney's latest movie. George is a joke. Mothercare is a joke. Next is a joke. Boden, La Redoute, Jojo Maman Bebe, Verbaudet etc all have some nice stuff but I'm on a very limited budget so it's not that practical.

I want bright colours, no logos, no stupid slogans, no shiny materials, no war/army/skateboarding/surfing references. I want my child to look like what he is - a beautiful, cheerful, happy, innocent little boy, not a death metaller, not an Iraq war veteran, not a slack-jawed chav. And I want to be able to buy it all in my local shopping centre. Is that too much to ask?

Like Moominmamma, I would like to be able to dress my son in 'normal' clothes, ie. no logos, pictures, slogans and cartoon trash, or fake 'army' or 'action man' features.

Would like cheerful but sensible colours, ie. not mud/sludge/khaki, but navy, red, pale blue, sea green etc. Would also like the clothing manufacturers to remember the large proportion of us whose children's colouring comes in varying shades of standard UK mouse, ie. not likely to be flattered by fluorescent yellow/orange or violent shades of acid green or turquoise.

I would like to dress my daughters in colours other than pink and lilac, and do not want them to look like underage prostitutes or popstar wannabees. Classic clothes with an edge is fine, simple dresses and skirts as well as plenty of unisex t-shirts, shorts and trousers. Girls' stuff does not need to always feature a cutesy butterfly/flower/heart embroidery.

Would also like the untarty ranges sometimes available for littler girls to also be available further up the age range. Not all 7+ girls are wild about Barbie and pink tarty stuff, and neither are their parents.

Oh, and they could make straightforward attractive kids' shoes available in bigger sizes, too -- my 8yo daughter has size 4.5, and my 4yo son has size 12, and it's a real struggle to find stuff that isn't black clumpy rubbish.

Too much to ask?

Does anyone else remember Clothkits? They started as a cottage industry (bit like Laura Ashley) making sew-it-yourself kit clothes (yes, really! ) and expanded into all kinds of children's clothes, masses of bright colours, they were wonderful and not expensive, but then they over-expanded or something and vanished. Kids' Stuff, before they sold out to GLTC, were similar. Sigh.

In Matalan's defence they do have some bright tops in the larger boys' range - DS2 has a couple of red hoodies (one says footy and the other has some random letters on the front). He has some bright T shirts from there too. And when I went to Gap the other day (big treat for me!) they had lots of bright T shirts and jumpers (wasn't looking at anything else).

But I do know what you mean. When he was little there seemed to be a lot more lovely colourful clothes about than there are now.

Janh, I remember people buying clothkits!! Your post has brought back some long forgotten memories!

Clayhead, they were so lovely! My kids had the padded coats with little animals in the pockets - grandma used to sew them for me. I was really sad when they disappeared.

Another Cloth Kits blast-from-the-past here, Janh!! Dd1 had the padded jackets and also the knitted dresses, which were very sweet. Istr having a knitted suit and a pink baby cord skirt for myself, too. Aah, those were the days.....

I had lots of Clothkits clothes...oooh that takes me back! I had a turquoise padded jacket with printed animals and flowers on, very hippyish. And I remember pinafore dresses with prints on and a bright stripey T-shirt dress that I wore and wore and wore.

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What about older boys with their own ideas of what they like? I have tried to dress my 10 year old in a range of colours, deliberately avoiding the usual colours. But now there is no way he will wear 'interesting' colours for the sake of it.

Both he and I share common ground.He likes skateblardy stuff and so do I (not all but some). IMO it's a bit more varied than sports style clothing, the only main alternative around here. Also, because he is not that sporty, but actually does like skatboarding, it is more true to his personality. Now Hennes do lots of quite nice skateboard stuff but will my son have any of it? no! he thinks it's an uncool label. I would say that's because Hennes do baby and girl's clothes too, but that's can't be it as my son likes (some) Gap clothes. He doesn't care if the clothes are cheap - we go to TKMaxx - but he does care that the label is not childish. He likes quicksilver, kangaroopoo, ripcurl etc. Even if Adams did the coolist looking dude stateboard stuff, and I loved it to bits, I doubt that my son would wear it.

Up until the age of 7 or 8 I could get my son into interesting things of my choice, but since then, no way, ie GAP did some lovely boys stripey jumpers at christmas but my son hated them.

IME, you can't assume a 10 year old will be as easy to dress adventurously as a 6 year old, posing problems for desingers of older boys ranges. If I was designing for my son, I think I'd look at cool adult clothing, accessories and equipment ranges (not high fashion necessarily) and possibly cool films, cartoons and personalities and base designs around these things. My son is quite into some of the Beckham range of clothing by Marks and Spencers for instance, but a single piece woudn't go with his stuff so as yet we haven't got any. I don't like the limited colours of the range, but it's interesting to note that Beckham clothing or cartoon pajamas are the only M and S clothing lines my son would wear apart from school uniform, which bears out my theory.

My prize for the worst item of boys clothing has to go to boden. A few years ago they did a stripey sleepsuit in pale blue and white. Yes an all in one sleepsuit. It was available for boys up to 12 years old!!!

Ah, but Tigermoth, they have to be brought up to wear ridiculous lounging-around clothing if they are to graduate to those horrible tartan elasticated waist trousers in the adult catalogue (re Boden sleepsuits...)

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agree about the age thing, part of my problem with next is that they lump 3-10 year old girls in a single category. There are bits of the up to 3 year range that i don't mind, but DD is too tall for their 3-4y stuff and the 3years plus clothes are nasty!

I have just been in an incredibly protracted e mail correspondence with Vertbaudet. Couldn't register for a catalogue without giving DS's name and dob. I objected, they said they couldn't register me for a catalogue without submitting his name unless I gave my customer number - but that I won't get customer number til catalogue arrives!!! Am I weird, not wanting to have to give the full name of my 2 year old in order to give them my money for the off t shirt???

Anyone tried Dunnes? It is an Irish store but they are also in the UK - there is one in Northampton. There stuff is pretty good (have to admit that I was looking for dd, so not sure on the boys stuff), I managed to get her some lovely cropped beige linen trousers with a deep orange top to go with them - they look superb - cheap too.

no you're not weird at all. That seems a strange thing to want to know. What if you were shopping for friends and family and not your own child? I was just coming on to say I use Vertbaudet a lot for my boys.

I think we should make a thing of this in the media as there as so many other mums out there that agree.

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The Vertbaudet thing is a ridiculous marketing ploy whereby they send children a birthday card! I just don't feel like colluding with it and involving DS in such a thing. Like my privacy, too.
They do have a good range of reasonably priced clothing, though, so i stuck it out!

What about making up some kids and their DOBs? Or giving another one of your own names so you get a birthday card

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thread too long so I haven't read all the replies - count me in.
I'd like to see ds in bright colours or even muted shades of the colours that boys clothes just don't seem to be made in
Red, Orange, purple, yellow, green, blue (not baby blue).
I do like the clothes in the shops, I just get fustrated at the lack of choice in styles or colours.
where do I sign?

lisalisa, i've got a couple of cyrillus things that i picked up second hand - they're great.

um - secur - if you write a cheque over your card guarantee limit the bank has no obligation to honour it. If the shop doesn't have your address they could be out of pocket. They don't have to accept the cheque at all - doing you a favour really.

You could always go round twice and write out 2 cheques, both under the limit, no address required!

wow, haven't been online for ages and when I come back..a massive thread about my favourite subject..the awfulness of boys clothes!!!
I have just been packing our suitcases for summer holiday and I am quite impressed at stuff I have managed to get...80% is from gap.(all sale stuff please note) nice bright stripy t- shirts, and some summery ones with turtles and lobsters on.Also managed to get some nice stuff from john lewis, sort of a nautical style ..res and white stripes and blue etc.
I absolutely LOATHE all the skate boarder stuff and the military style stuff. DS1 has 2 items of camoflauge stuff, both of which were bought for him by my s-i-l( who I think just does it to wind me up) and he wears them occasionally, always in conjunction with something else.eg the t- shirt with chino's and the trousers with a plain bright t-shirt.Also hate the " i'm trouble" type slogans,and also notices alot of slogans this year of an" i've got attitude" what's that all about??
Lastly, shoes.DS1 has big feet and so although he is only 4 is expected to wear shoes suitable for a 7 or 8 yearold going to school..ie black and clumpy.No thanks!!!!
Yes, I'm up for a campaign..count me in!!