My view on children's wear: A rant

Today I went shopping as my son needed some new shirts. I had made him several tye dies that he likes, and he has his prized Star Wars shirt, but he still needed a few more for fall. He likes bright colors, graphics, no stripes. Unfortunately the boys' 8-20 departments are full of grey, navy and camoflage; sports and vehicles reign surpreme. I found an orange shirt with an ironic saying that wasn't too obnoxious. A bright blue shirt with an athletic figure. They were the best of the bad. Overall, today's boys' wear is full of violent and sarcastic themes, and downright ugly.

Glancing over at the girls' department for some comparative research, a wall of cream, pink and red assaulted me. The themes were mainly of self-centeredness: princess, love to shop; and the usual girly hearts and flowers. One shirt made me laugh: "Dear Santa, GIMME" Seemly it captured toddler greed--or at least our stereotyped view of small children. In actuality, little ones who have been sensitively tended to are quite kind and generous.

All in all, children's wear has become gender-specfic to the extreme. I find the current store offerings horrible. Surely the pedulum must someday swing the other way, and I suppose I should stockpile some of my own creations for that happy day. I do notice that my more gender-specific tees sell much better than those that are more ambiguous. But I most enjoy designing items that seem to me to be more universal.

I just love this shirt, my most recent offering. It probably bothers some people that the child in this photo is not clearly visually designated as male or female. [Delicate arched eyebrows=female, short hair=male, blue pants=male, but such a bright blue, maybe female???] The shirt itself says "Peace" and shows a lamb and lion resting together--by current standards, clearly "feminine" themes--but on a "masculine" black shirt, and no pink to make that black shirt okay.

I guess this shirt is my counter-argument to what I see in the stores. A world of tolerance, not violence; people [and creatures] living in harmony; nature, not trucks (for boys) and trinkets (for girls); children getting to be children, not sexualized before their time; a spiritual theme over materialistic ones. Perhaps no one will want it, or just very few. Still, at least I have the one for my daughter, pictured above.