Many people may feel confused when they need to buy a small gift for friend’s new-born baby. If they are not told the baby’s gender, how can they choose? Pink or blue? There is a new trend for children’s clothing that unisex designs are more and more popular.
John Lewis is taking a lead in the U.K., replacing original signs of “girls” and “boys” with gender-neutral policy in all its children’s clothing departments.
Caroline Bettis, head of children’s clothing, said “We do not want to reinforce gender stereotypes within our John Lewis collections and instead want to provide greater choice and variety to our customers, so that the parent or child can choose what they would like to wear.” The new attitude is demonstrated from stores’ new labels as children’s garments on sale are noted “Boys & Girls” or “Girls & Boys.” However, the new policy only applies to clothes targeted at children less than 15 years old. The popular clothing brand has not planned to adopt the same measures for other departments because current policy has rendered the British media’s criticism.
When John Lewis changed the attitude and relabeled clothes in the first unisex children’s wear collection, another brand Belstaff said they designed some gender-neutral garments including jackets, sweatshirts, hoodies and T-shirts for children, which do not embody any gender stereotypes. These styles are suitable for all children whose cognition and gender-identity will not be constrained from these clothes.
Delphine Ninous, creative director at Belstaff said “It was great fun working on this first kids collection. Being a first-time mother I know the importance of having practical but fun clothing for kids and considered this throughout the design.” The price for this collection is affordable that it ranges from T-shirts’ $50 to a signature Roadmaster jacket’s $450 which is a scaled-down version from original one. Customers can buy them online also in Belstaff stores across the world.
