Monday, May 24, 2010

Stripes or Skulls - What would you choose?

One Saturday afternoon I went shopping with my son. The kids section in Macy's welcomed us with bright spring colors. I saw several aisles of beautiful girl's dresses in pink and purple. Then it was the newborns section - several aisles of soft pastel yellows and blues, tops and tees adorned with pretty bows and cute little teddy bears. I almost reached the end and I still couldn't find clothes for my boys. I asked someone who worked at the store and they pointed me to the same way that I walked before. "All the way to the end" she said. I went back again and I was astonished to find that only the back wall had some boys clothes. Nothing much! Girls section occupied 60% of the space, newborns took 30% of the space and remaining 10% was for boys (age range 2 to 8). I couldn't believe that I had to shop in this tiny little section for the next years!

I was browsing through the clothes and I couldn't find one thing interesting. I was looking for some casual wear. The tees had terrifying graphic prints - a humungous dragon spitting fire, a dinosaur destroying a city, a speedy car kicking out bikers & pedestrians off the road, a robot shooting in all directions etc. While it is cute for boys to be naughty little rowdies these graphics seem to cross the border of a lovable wildness.

Besides this I saw dump trucks, garbage trucks, bandaged-boy and skulls. I wonder what would be the motivation for anyone to buy these kinds of clothes unless it is for Halloween dress-up. But it was not even the season. These clothes seem to be the spring season arrivals for little boys. Oh and then there was the faded-look, paint ripped off/ splattered screen print tees – definitely NO!!

If you leave out all these then you are left with solids, stripes or checks. I feel like these are very adult-ish. I don’t want to push my kids into these patterns already since they are going to be stuck with them for many years anyway. I don't want my kids to look too nerdy. At the same time I can't accept the way too trendy/ hip looks.

Whatever happened to cute little newborn outfits with sweet wordings like ‘I love my mommy’, ‘My Dad rocks’, etc. Where are the adorable teddy bears, ducklings, cars and trains?

I hope trend changes and boys also get a chance to dress up in something nice and cool.