Fashion.

[Itchylegs]

Not a weighty issue, but DS (13) has become fashion conscious but we have tried all the high st stores to find fashion for his age and there is nothing. He thinks it is assumed his age group shops solely at JD Sports and Sports Direct. He wants cool t-shirts and neat cotton shirts. Is small for his age so can't wear small adult it seems. Any ideas?

Depends on what he means by cool T-shirts. Is there a brand he particularly likes? Have you tried taking him to an outlet village to see what he can find there?

Outlet village ... Ok. Annoying as you'd think living bang in central London you would have fashion on your doorstep. He likes some stuff by Volcron and Quiksilver, but unsure of sizing because only seen in website.

Tricky for this age, isn't it? When they're too small for men's but too big for children's. (Slippers are my problem atm)

My 13yo DS is not Inthe least fashion conscious, so I'm going off which shops worked for my DD at that age (so I apologise if the selection is off!)-
H&M for plain cotton basics, and the 14+ size fits smaller adults
River Island
Quicksilver is Roxy for girls, and the sizing is on the small side. It's listed in bands of age- 10, 12, 14 years, but like euro clothing this means 'up to 10', 'up to 12' etc. So my DD is 5'4" and slender, and has outgrown her Roxy age 14 tops. I always ordered online, and the clothing quality was reasonable (quiksilver is more expensive than H&M basics, but the things she had were nice cotton and lasted well, didn't get holes etc)

The online shop I used quite a bit was surfdome, and they will have the sale on right now. (usually children's footwear is heavily reduced on there, and I always get their backpacks from there too)

Another one for surfwear, vans etc is SkateHut.co.uk and again, their sale is usually v good for children (stock range is fairly small though, as it's an independent shop (physical shop).

Depending on his actual size, Zara is probably your best option for shirts- again, smaller sizing as it's European, but they have excellent quality cotton button-down Oxford shirts pretty much every season, usually in decent colours (my DS has navy, and light blue). They often have grandad-neckline and linen versions for summer/holidays.

Also [cough] I am 5'0", size 8, and I wear men's size small long sleeved tops from Sainsbury's which are perfect in length, arm length, etc and are decently thick pure cotton. My DS is 5'2", very slim, and wears men's S Sainsbury's tops too

TK Maxx, they often have surf type stuff.

It's a bit of a nightmare - that age group. They don't want to wear big versions of kids stuff but they're swamped by adults

Thanks so much. All really helpful and on Surfdome RN!

I'm the same size haba and I didn't know that about Sainsburys. I'll have a look next time I'm there

They're v good for plain tops, the cotton is better than in the women's clothing (most of which is viscose or polyester mix in any case).

I’d recommend looking on a website called surfdome they have a lot of quicksilver and similar brands easy to return stuff as well

Thanks haba