trying to buy ds' summer wardrobe ....

[nappyaddict]

why is it so difficult once they get to 2? everything is brown, khaki, grey and navy blue!! is it only me who hates these colours?

by summer wardrobe i just meant his clothes for the summer. he obviously needs different summer clothes to winter cos of the weather.

TK Maxx...marvellous but you have to browse.

I'm fed up of the boy's clothes too. My DS is 2.5 and everything is so dull and bland. What's wrong with colour? They're only two FFS; why do they have to be into surfing? Or Monsters. I always end up buying GAP pajamas and he wears them during the day as they are lovely sweet colours and designs, very unlike the GAP boys daytime clothes. Just bought baby blue pair with green and red apples all over the trousers/leggings and the top has an apple with two little caterpilars on it and says "The Apple of My Eye"- SOOOOOO sweet! Why aren't they allowed to be sweet when they're only tow; why all these big tough daft boys clothes, camoflage, etc. It's such a problem finding him funky stuff. Benetton sale was Ok a year ago or so, lots of great colours but recently they went all slogans and numbers and surfy just like the other shops. Boden is Ok but a bit predictable and again it's monsters and bloody surf boards. I end up trailing round second hand shops hoping to find groovy stuff and sometimes do. Was just thinking yesterday I must get some colourful fleece and sew him a little jacket and I don't even know how to sew! I just couldn't face a Khaki or navy blue dull boys coat. i have even bought him girls coats but he does look a little odd in it as it's all fitted with a little belt accross the back and a petal shaped collar!!! Poor thing. The colours were just so nice though- blue and brown plaid with green polka dots! I might even attempt some fleecy dungarees as I imagine it's an easy fabric to work with, but I guess I'm not really thinking ahead as it'll be summer soon enough and also it'll take me about six years t get around to sewing ANYTHING! Another good plan is to buy cheap PRIMARK T-shirts and use that printer paper you can get for your computor that creates an iron on transfer for fabric then print out something original and colourful and isn't a truck or a bloody boy toy or whatever. I was watching Night Garden earlier and thinking I might do him a Tombliboo inspired outfit (God I sound like a right hippy, i'm not really)

The stuff I bought from Primark just fell to bits.

As they grow out of them so quick it's never bothered me that Primark stuff might fall to bits. He had lovely bright blue cordroys from there when he was smaller (about £3!) and when the knees went through I ironed on some smiley face patches or some such nonsense. At least it was jolly and bright and child like not grey and dull.

Someone linked to this site the other day, I love it, colourful inexpensive basics, and if you want to pay extra you can choose your own prints in various colours, plus your own text. Rockets, dinos, aliens etc are all there. Have already had fun designing t-shirts with DD.

zara kids is great for boys. if you can afford it. really nice stuff and great colours.

luckily ds isn't a typical "boy" as such yet so doesn't ruin his clothes by climbing trees etc. he's only just started walking so for the moment his clothes stay in pretty nice condition but i still don't want to pay a fortune for them. least now he's older he doesn't grow out of them so quick.

peasoup - do you like dinosaurs or the alien/space chip theme cos i think gap were doing some stuff with those things on?

Enjoy the moment - in a few months time they won't want to wear anything but football strip...!

That site that Sputnik linked to, Rainbow babies, looks great. And pretty easy to use even though the instructions are in Dutch! Cheap as wll. I'm deffo gonna do a few from that. Checked out Nordic kids and they are super lovely. Wonder if you get a good re sale price for them on Ebay as they are v. expensive (£55 kids jacket!!)
Nappy Addict- I kind of like the space ship thing, especially a good retro space ship! I don't mind dinosaurs but mainly I'd like him to have some nice innocent stuff (while he still lets me dress him) like a lady bird for example. What's wrong with a good old fashioned ladybird?! I get turned off by the stereotypical boys stuff. Saw a blanket in some trendy baby shop the other day by "Angels With Dirty Faces" with really retro spaceships, maybe they do clothes.

Just got a suitcase full of spring / summer stuff for my son while on holiday in the USA . I agree , boys clothes in most high street shops in the UK are dull-a-rama. Also, hate the fact that everything is either branded with Thomas/SpongeBob/ Spiderman or has lame train/truck/surf-related slogans and pictures on it. I struggle to find interesting, colourful, cheap clothing here, to be honest, and I just don't see the sense in forking out loads for samll children's clothing.

Aztec looks lovely and I love the red cord jackets in there for £10.

I bought some nice things for the boys in Debenhams recently which were in the sale.

I despise skeleton skull things and skateboarding stuff.

DS2 (3y) has just had his photo done at school....a group photo....and he is in navy trousers with a yellow and navy rugby top.

Really cute.

Next to him is Billy.....a three year old with a crew cut and a skull and crossbones tshirt.

The photo has cost me £9.....

peasoup - i love the bug theme too. george at asda had some nice shorts and tshirt sets with bugs on.

I got some great fleeces from Primark for the boys for £1 each and they washed really well.

I buy cheap clothes for nursery from Tesco and Sainsburys and nicer clothes for best and sp occasions from Next and Debenhams and Monsoon sale.

Oh I've just had the new brochure for Pumpkin Patch and the boys stuff looks lovely in there. I do love Pumkin Patch, again abit more than I like to pay, but I don't mind getting special stuff from there....

I've just bought dd and ds1's summer clothes.
All from Next suprisingly.

Ds1 is 20 months and I think I've done quite well to avoid slogans, khaki and the drab stuff.

It hasnt cost a fortune either.

I use H&M, Next, M&S and Boots Mini Mode for DS1 (3) and Ds2 (10 months).
I also dont like distressed clothes/khaki/slogans/dull colours etc.
I usually find decent simple clothes in all of these shops, M&S often has some gems and decent trousers in among the slogan stuff and Next has some good things sometimes, like good colour stripe tops. H&M again good for bright colours/stripes.
I do buy bits from Green Baby in the sales and they are lovely, bright and good quality.

i thought it was just boys stuff that there was a problem with. went to a massive mothercare world yesterday to buy my pregant friend some things for her dd and do you know there were about 4 things that had no pink whatsoever on them and even they were still in pastelly colours so i came back out empty handed.

Mothercare is so gruesome. They must pay their designers peanuts to get such saddo clothes. My friend used to work for Matalan designing boys clothes but cos of their costs they gave her literally 10 mnutes per design! She had to quickly look through image libraries, find a surfboard or a truck or something, photshop a slogan or a number in jazzy lettering over it, wham bam, next please!!! She said it was so disheartening churning out such crap. Once she ahd a kid she tried to set up her own kids clothes line but there are huge trading standard issues with kids clothing and toys that it's a minefield to do anything except print onto a T shirt as a soletrader. She treid to set up doing cute tshirts but unless she sent to China to get enormous batches of them printed her costs were too high doing it in the UK so the T shirts would have ended up £22 each and she still probably wouldn't have made a living. Sorry don't know if that's relevant to the thread but annoying that all we get is crap.

if she opened up a shop she would just use ready made clothes from suppliers i guess so hopefully it wouldn't be too much of an issue.

DS wears mostly Next, M&S and H&M, I try to get things in the sales in the next size up where possible so have things for him to grow into. I hate slogans and cutesy pictures too, so DS seems to have a wardrobe full of stripes

Just recently some of the larger new look stores have had some cute hoodies and things quite cheaply (along with some hideous skull and crossbones tat, admittedly)

Some decent bits here
www.marksandspencer.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sc_ca_c_5_46377031_2/202-0051344-1550273?ie=UTF8&node=587 42031&no=46377031&mnSBrand=core&me=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM

If you have a House of Fraser near you POP is a great range, fab quality and often have sales.