Friday 12 December 2014

Funky Kid Friday - Big love to Donna Wilson

Something I always champion on this blog is unisex fashion and letting children wear clothes that have nothing to do with gender and more to do with comfort though I do love a bit of style, let's not deny that!

Some of you may be aware of a movement called Let Toys Be Toys.  It's all about letting children choose what toys they want to play with and encouraging stores to stop dividing their toys according to gender.  You know the kind of thing; pink kitchen equipment for girls and blue diggers for boys.  I've always let my boys play with whatever toys they like.  They have cars, kitchen stuff, dolls houses, trains, a push chair, dolls, fairy dresses, space suits...  Their clothes and toys are of all different colours.  I don't buy into this half hearted idea of making "girls" toys that are "appropriate" for boys by making them blue, like when you see a blue push chair being marketed for boys.  No.  NO.  It's just a pushchair.  It's not for a girl or a boy, it's for a child!

I digress.  The folks behind #lettoysbetoys have a new movement and it's Let Clothes Be Clothes!  I'm sure you can guess the ethos.  It's simple.  Children's clothes should just be clothes, they needn't be "boys" or "girls".  So many stores divided their clothing according to gender and make some really odd choices as to what constitutes a "boys" top or a "girls" top etc.  A company #letclothesbeclothes have been targeting recently is John Lewis.  There are several reasons why (earlier this week they were spotted stocking "bras" for girls from age 2 plus!) but I want to write about the way they were stocking their fantastic Donna Wilson range.

I myself have bought several items from this range and I must admit I did notice when buying online that some of the range was under "girls" and some under "boys".  As I wanted two pairs of the leggings for my boys, I had to venture to the "girls" section.  No bother really, I'm used to shopping from both sections, though it would be nice just to be able to shop in "children's clothes".  I found the way the clothes had been divded accorcding to gender very strange and guess what, so did #letclothesbeclothes.  More than this though, Donna herself never intended the range to be divided by gender.  She had very sensibly designed it as unisex.

Blah Blah Blah Donna Wilson Leggings John Lewis
Felix in his Blah Blah Blah leggings by Donna Wilson @ John Lewis
Scandi Cross Vest - hand printed by me
Tee - Threadless
Moccs - Belle and The Bear

Now, thankfully John Lewis have changed how the have the range as unisex (or in both sections....) on their website.  I'm not sure what is happening in their stores, but at least they have made an effort.  I love this range of clothing and I've always chosen clothes according to whether I and my boys like them and how practical they are, not whether they are intended for a girl or boy.  I'm used to looking in girls and boys sections, online and in stores.  I do look forward to a day when that's not the norm though.

What are your thoughts on this subject?

Want to link up a kids fashion post?  Please use the linky below!  I will do my best to comment on your post as soon as I can though do bear with me, no one is sleeping well in this house just now, both boys have been ill and it's very manic here!!!  Please don't forget to link to me in your blog post - thank you! xx

7 comments:

  1. Some clothes are more unisex than others - I don't feel too strongly about unisex clothes, as I do live pink on my lil girl :) but toys should be branded unisex, silly to make boys and girls toys, they are all the same really.

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    1. Yes, I agree it's a tad harder with clothes because obviously you aren't going to get as many boys that want to wear a skirt... it's just when shops do really annoying things like only putting cats on "girls" clothing or "dogs" on boys. Implying what? That boys like to get messy so they like dogs and girls like sitting around preening so they get cats.... IYKWIM?

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  2. Interesting post! My daughter chose a 'boy's' Christmas jumper, which I hope to get posted in the next day or two. I must say it's something I never considered when my boys were little, but I can see that plenty of clothes would be suitable for both boys and girls and there's no reason why they shouldn't be.

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  3. I do agree about toys - girls and boys should be able to choose what they want to play with irrespective of colour or type. Even with clothes I agree that the gender stereotyping could be far less defined - obviously certain things will never be for boys but things like leggings, tights, tops etc there is no reason why we can't see more unisex stuff out there. #fashionfriday

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  4. I agree about toys and clothes too, children must be children and my sons' wardrobes are vivid and bursting with colour, Love this unisex range! I hate the generalisations over boys I hear day in day out-my eldest loves drawing as much as sports, they both adore Frozen and Tinkerbell and have great attention spans. I really hope silly preconceptions change. All linked up x

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  5. I agree on the toys front, and to a certain extent clothes - but from a merchandising and customer point of view I prefer it to be clearly signed and together so it's easy and quick to shop. Toys makes sense - it's easy to categorise by dolls, vehicles, role play etc without using gender. But with clothes, merchandising by jumpers, skirts, dresses, trousers would make it hell to shop. Fine put all the underwear in one place, and have a unisex section, but as I'm never going to dress N in leggings (unless they're long johns) a skirt or dress, then I don't really want to be shopping around a kids section which is double the size of what I have to shop now.

    Online I hate it when they leave things generalised under children...it's often the sign of poor filtering and means again you're swamped by too many items to trawl through.

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  6. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this... as you know, I rarely put Little Owl in pink (typically I have this week), but where do you put skirts and dresses if everything is unisex? A lot of the scandi clothes I buy Little Owl is unisex, and the fit is great, but a lot of the boys clothes in the UK are too square for her. Then again, I posted a few weeks ago, with Little Owl wearing a 'boy' top and gloves... hohum....

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