Having trawled the shops for things that Maddy wanted to wear and getting nowhere, i gave in and spent a morning online sorting through every bl**dy clothing store i could find until my elder daughters were clothed again.
I’ve avoided having a boots rant this year, partly because the shops seem possibly to have noticed that not every parent wants their pre-pubescent daughter heeled and tassled and partly because i remembered to go and buy boots for them in August, there by not getting left with the dregs. I’ll ignore the fact that Brantanos had a pair of strappy, silver glittered sandals with a 4cm heel in a size smaller than Josie’s feet 🙄
This years rant is aimed at the fact that it is getting nigh on impossible to easily find girls clothes for children who don’t want to dress like adults, that are in anything other than pink. It’s really getting on my wick now. With 4 girls, the opportunities for not having them outfitted in a way that makes them look like a selection of mottled piggies are becoming few and far between. Tesco only seems to have velour (blech) or flouncy skirts in black, H&M is doing i know not what but doesn’t appear to want to clothe 8-10 year olds at all anymore, Sainsbury’s only has blue for boys under 2 (which is a shame as they had a cardigan in that size that Maddy would have loved!) and every other bl**dy shop only has pink, or fushia, or raspberry – or red, which doesn’t especially suit any of my children. Possibly if i was prepared to spend a fortune somewhere i could find things, but mostly then they are ‘nice’ clothes and i mainly only want roughing about clothes and i hate buying cotton stuff because then after the first wash they perpetually serve as a reminder that i won’t (can’t?) iron.
When Fran was little (and admittedly that’s 10 years ago), girls clothes were mainly yellow, orange and lime-green and if you wanted to buy blue jogging bottoms, you just did, from the boys section. Most of the clothes i bought for her, i bought fairly uni-sex, given i assumed at the time i might well have some boys at some point ( 😆 ) It wasn’t hard to do, the boys clothes were in nice enough colours and perfectly gender-anonymous. The pink thing began to creep in as Maddy was born, but even then i only added a few pinky bits, feeling that i might as well indulge it with 2 girls.
Now days you can’t buy a blue pair of trousers without it having a truck, or a monster, or “I’m a truly horrid little boy unless you feed me sweets” emblazoned somewhere on it, in any of the places that i’ve cheaply clothed my girls for the last 10 years or so. And it’s REALLY annoying – but not as annoying as the fact that nothing in the girls section comes without flounces, or HSM on it, or diamond trims and it’s all in sodding pink. I’m SO bored of pink and even if 3 of my children like it, Maddy REALLY doesn’t.
I’d spent a while flicking through boys sections in an effort to find things (a la Gwenny) but the trouble is, Maddy doesn’t like ‘boyish’ things and she likes things to be right. She might like blue, but she has a particular desire for feminine blue, not boyish blue and so boys sections don’t really cut it for her. All she wants, bless her, is a nice blue cardigan/fleece/jacket, not in pink but not with “I like to go stalking deer and smearing the blood on my cheek after the kill” written across it. (God knows what boys who like to ballet dance wear, or vegan ones, or ones that like pink….)
I’ve spent the entire morning shopping and between the Pumpkin Patch Online Outlet, M&S and Vertbaudet, i’ve finally managed to buy a summer/autumn supply of clothes that i like but that my girls will like too. Thank god for the internet, that’s all i can say.
This is why Clo wears her jeans a lot. She’s a jeans and t-shirt girl so fortunately reasonably easy to please. Tho her preference is to stay in her pyjamas all day long.
Also the jeans need to be preworn in a soft type denim so they are comfortable. Thank god for Ebay is my refrain.
Quite appreciate it’s not everybody’s choice of clothing.
I did spend ages trying to find a copy of Maddy’s skirt. Failed dismally on the PP online store (sale and non-sale) and also ebay so if you see it anywhere I’ll pay you back. 🙂
The most easily available Primark to us is Loughborough; i did go once and got nighties, it was good. It’s just actually finding the time to do it is the annoying thing. We got some Woolies stuff a while ago but the quality was pretty dire for the older girls stuff. I suppose i ought to go back to ASDA too; trouble is, you make a trip and then find it is all crappy this season. I braved the new Matalan and there wasn’t a single thing i liked and neither did the kids.
Weirdly, once they get a bit bigger, things seem to get easier, and the clothes stop being so trashy – certainly we don’t have too much trouble getting stuff for Violet or Gwenny. Glad you’re feeling more sorted 🙂
Btw, I have a stripey fleece jacket that I’ll put aside for Maddy for next winter or the one after 🙂
We have the same problem with two boys who do not like their clothes to be emblazoned with skulls, blood, daggers, etc etc.
Picked up a couple of extremely thin but palatable stripy sweatshirts in QS on Friday along with a couple of scarlet red ‘Japanese print’ long sleeved T’s from same. All for sixteen quid. Didn’t look at the girls stuff but may be worth a look for playclothes if you have one nearby?
We feel the same. I was going to suggest Verbaudet after using them successfully to get nice, non-pink clothing. We use Next sometimes too after discovering it was cheaper than Mothercare and in some cases as cheap as Peacocks!
Dont even get me started on heeled shoes…
primark. Good choice, not all pink, some simple tops as well as the emblazoned stuff, cheap, and (apparently) ethical.
If you don’t have one terribly near it could well be worth doing a day out even with all the hassle that entailed – I got Big a dress, two vest tops (that we’ve now given to Alex as she didn’t like, sigh) a bikini and Small two T shirts, trousers and trunks all for £21.
My Sainsburys seemed to have lots of not pink girls clothes last week, maybe a trip up there the next time you are here? Will check to see if Charlie has anything blue that he has outgrown that would be suitable and bring it with me on Tuesday.
I was going to suggest vertbaudet too.
It really annoys me. And Primark isn’t always that good. They have their fair share of white puffa jackets, pink leggins with lacy bottoms and jogging bottoms with ANGEL in silver across the bum.
our asda is okay, I grab blue leggings from thre farily often
We’ve discovered Pumkin Patch – just as P is about to outgrow their biggest size. M&S was good recently – got her a lovely green, striped cardigan. As other have said, Vertbaudet can be good. Mind you, they are rather inclined to put nonsense (in English) on the garments. Things like “big, fun day in the sunshine”…
@Em, oh I know that primark have the trashy stuff too, it’s just that they seem to have quite a range, from tart to school child so you can pick and choose!
Can’t now find the article I was reading yesterday that said they were quite good ethically, everything I’ve found today says they are terrible 🙁
Ahem, not me 😉 I have done my bit for retail!!!
Alison, that would be great 🙂
Not even sure i was that impressed with Vertbaubet this time; i’ve had lots of good stuff before, but the pickings were slim this time.
Quite agree with your post as well Merry.
I have a daughter that loves pink, but I can only tolerate so much of it.
I hate to see girls dressed much older than themselves, but I don’t want them looking like frumps either.I’m about coping with the crrent trend for long tops and leggings, both my daughters have some, but I also want ordinary tops to with ordinary bottoms….crumbs don’t I sound boring, :-0 but these are just for everyday wear
I just want nice pretty clothes that are a reasonable price, in a wide range of colours and that don’t fall to pieces in the wash!
I’m not one to rant normally, but really felt like joining in 🙂
So who’s going to set up an online shop sourcing all these items for us, since we all seem to be in agreement more or less 😉
CJ x
CJ
well, I am a la redoute girl, with a bit of vertbaudet and a fair smattering of ebay, as there you really can get non pink clothes – including things like cords – lovely wearable trousers!! SB is now a not particularly into pink girl – though is charmingly amenable. but i can’t bear the tart type style and logos. would dress her in pinafores and leggings given half a chance [crumpled look obviously!]
I seem to find ebay very hard to buy on for clothes now; i used to get lots of Fran’s stuff there. Maybe you could do some personal shopping for me Helen 😉
Every year this discussion comes up somewhere and every year I’m amazed. I never have any trouble clothing my girls and we live in the crapest smallest town in the UK (reserved right to generalise etc 🙂 ). M&S and Debenhams are great for non pink, funky practical but fun stuff. Next is great for fit as everything has adjustable waistlines and this year is especially non pink. M&S seem to be multi coloured thias year with everything in orange, red and green. I could go on 🙂 My only complaint is that Boo likes flowers and stuff embroidered on everything so I tend to need to add that myself now she is wearing older girl clothes.
We don’t have a Debenhams here and the nearest is in the utterly unbearable Cambridge (i think, if it is still there). M&S has yielded a few things online but our local branch isn’t huge and has recently reduced its childrens dept and Next is a) mainly out of my price league for buying for all 4 and b) a place i avoid since i discovered they have had, in the past, a cast iron policy of making their clothes on the small end of the size scale so fat people don’t besmirch brand by wearing their clothes.
And it has to be said Ros, lovely as your girls always look, you let them wear things that are a fair bit more grown up than i let mine. Your girls have the zip to carry off a much more dressed up look than mine do, or at least they always seem to when i see them 🙂 (And you iron, so your range of fabrics is wider!) Even Fran is only just wearing size 9 clothes and finding things that stay on her but don’t baby her or make her look trashy is distinctly tricky 🙂
I agree to all the arguements having had the problem with dressing both a boy and girl. It is amazing how hard it can be to just get some plain nice clothes in a variety of colours. I think one of the hardest bits is that all the sizes vary from each shop, and even within the same shop at times. H has a 5-6 skirt, 6-7 tops and 7-8 dress, all from Mothercare! Saying that–our Mothercare has had some nice clothes for the boys without slogans on them, and they’ve gone a bit away from all there pastels for the winter. Though it is still a bit too pink for me.
Hi, I picked a very busy night to comment!! I have a child who loves pink so thats not such a problem, it is the fact that at only 9 she is in age 10/11 clothes and so many of them are innapropriate IMO for 10/11 never mind a tall 9 year old!!
That aside I have been given a blog award to share and have given it to the blogs I have read since we started to home ed a year ago to say thanks for putting your lives out there and helping people like me.If you pop along to mine you can pick it up.Thanks XXX
http://trevorandbreda.blogspot.com/2008/02/inappropriate-adjective-1-inappropriate.html
Words escaped me . . .
Next is great for fit if your kids are on the slim side of average 😉 (But actually isn’t that pricey these days – I think everywhere’s getting cheaper – my plan when each of mine turn 13 is to give them their child benefit to buy their own clothes, and Violet’s is going to go a lot further than my family allowance used to!) But all of my girls are too solid for there – Buttercup was recently bought a Next T-shirt, in a size 8! Good for Ernest though, he likes their shirts.
Allie – Pumpkin Patch have Urban Angel in the back of the shop for 8-16’s – it’s very variable, but Gwenny’s had a few nice things from there – currently sporting this black denim pinafore.
Michelle, Dear God 🙁
PS – thank Claire 🙂
We feel exactly the same.
1. Heeled shoes for kids – what.is.up.with.that?
2. Dressing 1 year olds like 20 year olds. Don’t get it.
3. No clothes sans logo. Annoying
4. Pink everywhere
Luckily Rowan really likes pink and Ella is too young to care. Laughably, we also bought some unisex stuff thinking there might have been a boy 😆 but even that kind of stuff is few and far between really.
We buy from Next.. much cheaper than Mothercare which has become disgustingly priced… and Tesco. Occasionally from Adams but even there you have to trawl to find one decent item in 50.
The main thing that’s starting to annoy me now is how each and every high street store is starting to get away with charging an absolute fortune for clothes half the size of my leg that cost the same????
Don’t get that either!
Michelle. omg. I am sad about that. Because some people would think that was funny.
Not funny 🙁