http://www.bryanboy.com/bryanboy_le_superstar_fab/2010/07/werq-those-acne-wedge-boots.html

Is this considered gender neutral?

they do have different boy & girl collections, but they also have a unisex collection. click on the main heading to see it broken down into boy, girl, and uni.

Love it!

I love unisex clothing. I wish they made more for adults. I saw some in a fashion show once...

I'd argue that along with T-shirts, there are many cuts of jeans that can be considered unisex.

After puberty, at least, men and women have very different body shapes, which are there to be communicate fertility and other biological info to the opposite sex in the first place. Since we wear clothes that cover our natural sexual characteristics, I see no reason why men and women would not want to dress in a way that advertises or enhances their separate sexual features (wide shoulders, muscular chest, and narrow waist for men, breasts and hourglass shape for women).

In the case of children, I think it's natural to emulate same-sex parents, to a certain degree, as part of developing a distinct gender identity. But how specific clothes choices reflect this is obviously a cultural — and personal — expression.

They have both boys and girls sections with the same sort of traditional prints. i.e cars for boys, pink for girls
I don't know why they're marketing as unisex but then dividing the clothes into boys and girls sections anyway.

the company is actually swedish. just a comment...

If anyone knows anywhere that makes adult unisex clothes, please let me know! As a genderqueer I find it near impossible to find clothes that aren't either impossibly masculine or feminine :)

It's not just stores though that place emphasis on genderizing the clothing we put on our children.. many of us do it subconciously.

I remember buying a cute little t-shirt that was brown and yellow and had a lacrosse logo on it.. my child took one look and burst into tears and screamed 'IT'S A BOYS SHIRT!!'... I tried to explain to her that it was simply a 'brown shirt' but she would have none of it.

Similarly, I gave my ex a pair of my daughters old, black, straight-legged jeans (keeping in mind they were a size 4 - so kid-tailored) figuring his son could wear them, and nope.. they were GIRLs jeans. No way.

You could put a pink or purple shirt in a boys section and a lot of parents and kids wouldn't put it on their kid.. gender-specifying color and design is ridiculously ingrained in our psyches, to the point that one must be VERY concious of it in order to not perpetuate it.

Interesting--I appreciate that the store is drawing attention to issue and offering alternative ways of designing clothes. There does, however, seem to be more overlap between "boy" and "uni" clothes than "girl" and "uni" clothes. While traditionally acceptable boy clothing (pants, tshirts, etc.) can be seen as "unisex", traditional girl clothing (skirts and dresses in particular) can't be. I think this is another example of the fact that (as this site has often emphasized), changing gender roles often allow women to take on masculine roles but rarely allow the reverse.

'How is “I see no reason why” and “it’s natural” equate to a descriptive “typical”? You were pretty absolute there at first, it seems to me that you were in fact trying to enforce a standard that you consider natural and normal.'

As I said, Progressive Scholar, you assume too much about me.

I see no reason why people would not want to look good to the people they are sexually attracted to, which in most cases is the opposite sex. This is an opinion based on experience and human nature. Would you disagree with this truism?

"it’s natural" is also a harmless descriptive. How is that an attempt to "enforce a standard"? There was no "should" anywhere in there.

You seem to keep bringing up extremes as a way to challenge an average, as if you feel you're under attack. I'm not sure why you want to grind your axe on me, but I'm not the patriarch you're looking for... :)

I have less of a problem with gendered clothing for adults than for children. First of all, adults do have different shapes on average. Second, adult clothing can be gender-neutral in color and style, even if they are in separate sections. As an adult woman, I can find clothes in colors that would be considered too masculine for a female child and no one thinks anything of it.

For children, because they have bodies that are nearly identical, the emphasis is on gender differentiation. Girls' clothes in particular must be pink or purple or contain feminine accents like flowers or ruffles or bows. Boy clothes aren't as strict because anything not falling into the above is considered masculine. It drives me absolutely nuts.

It's pretty easy for me to buy unisex adult clothing, though it doesn't actually look unisex on me (My secondary sex characteristics are pronounced, my face is traditionally feminine, and my hair is long). I can grab some at Kohl's-- plain T-shirts or long-sleeved tees, loose jeans, etc. They just aren't actually advertised as unisex.

I love this idea for kids' clothes, though. Because people are worried that without secondary sex characteristics, their kid will seem the wrong gender, kids clothing is very very gendered regardless of cut. But at the same time, kids OUTGROW clothing very fast. My mother had to beg relatives and friends for hand-me-downs for boys when my brother was born, because she and my aunt both had only girls before then and she couldn't afford a whole new wardrobe every 6 months. She has told me that when it's my turn, I should insist on as much unisex clothing as I can, because even if you plan on one there might be more, and usually there are cousins to pass it on to. Gendered clothing is a class issue too, because it means hand me downs are harder.

Gender-neutral Polarn O Pyret clothes are totally cool and they were my first association when I read the title of this post. In fact, their Swedish website has no categories for boys and girls, no matter where you click. And their stores in Scandinavia have no boys' and girls' departments. I suppose it's only the English website that has some gender categories because the demands of the markets are different. Polarn O Pyret is a brand that targets middle-class educated parents who in Scandinavia are very conscious of gender equality issues, while cheaper brands of children's clothes like H&M are much more gender differentiated.
Also, you may have read about the case of the Swedish parents who refused to publicly disclose their child's gender - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/22/swedish-parents-baby-gender - in all media publications the child was given the alias POP, which is an abbreviation of Polarn O Pyret.

Yup, just to reiterate what POP wrote - the original swedish stores and the original swedish site has no gender divisions at all.

"One might make the argument that adult males and females have different bodies (an argument I might argue with), but we can’t say that pre-pubertal children do."

Sorry, but, yes, pre-pubescent children do have different bodies. Do you really think it's comfortable for a man or a small boy to have zero room in the crotch, like many womens'/girls' fashions?

And what about just plain practicality, like zippers on pants? If a manufacturer can save money on zippers (which are relatively expensive) by designing womens' and girls' pants without them, while keeping them in the mens' and boys' line (for obvious reasons), why wouldn't they?

One size doesn't fit all.

Did anyone notice that the unisex stuff generally looks masculine? To me it seems that the "Gender" of clothing is inherently male unless it has pink, poofy sleeves, a skirt or some other feminine embellishment. These unisex clothing look very much the same as the male stuff. I see lots of girls (me included) in male clothing, but the only crossing over from female to male that I've seen is in skinny jeans.

It seems to me that as a kid (I'm female) in the 70s I wore a lot of nongendered clothes: corduroys, jeans, turtlenecks. I didn't wear many ruffly things until prairie skirts came into style and I wanted one. Most of my polo shirts and things were red or blue or bright colors and not lilac or pink.

I'm the same way as an adult. I do shop in the women's section, but I like plain stuff like crewneck sweaters and cargo pants and denim jackets and chukka boots. It's not really that hard to dress in a unisex way. Though granted I wear jewelry and makeup.

I just looked at the site, and it appears from my cursory glance that the "unisex" stuff basically = the "boys" stuff (with the exception of one pink t-shirt). No surprise there--girls' clothes are for girls and boys' clothes are for everyone. (I have a daughter who wears a lot of hand-me-downs from a slightly larger male friend.)

Also, the underwear also appears only on the Boys and Girls pages, which makes sense. I wonder what they do with the underwear on the Swedish site?

this thread reminds me of an anecdote from this summer. i needed a new pair of shorts, and the female cuts were all uncomfortable, so went with a pair of dude cargo shorts. at the register, the cashier gave my mom (i was still dressing when she got to the register) a "uh... you do know those are guy-pants, right?"

wish my mom had answered that with what came to first her, then my mind after hearing that: "so, what? my boobs/ovaries will fall off if I wear shorts designed for men?"

- - - - - -

as to the issue why the unisex clothes look basically like boysto a large degree an artifact of the pattern that boys clothes are designed to be comfortable/for active kids, while girls clothes are apparently made uncomfortable/impractical on purpose. so a parent who wouldn't want gendered clothing probably wouldn't want impractical clothing their kids couldn't play in?

and of course, most things become gendered by creating an extra girl-version. phones for example. so the "boy" version is really the default, and "girl" was made into a special-case. i bet the same is true for a lot of clothes which had the unnecessary extra category "girl" added

American Apparel offers unisex clothes (jeans, pants, shirts) for adults.

I think it's worth noting that, with the exception of a few pink items, most of the gender-neutral clothing in the kids 6-11 section are things that would, at a Goodwill, be sorted into the boy's clothing section. I don't know, call it by another name and stick it on a girl, but those looked like clothes that are generally worn by boys with a different label at the top. I'm not sure why there are never any clothing items that you would typically associate with girls in this section. It seems to perpetuate the idea that women can wear men's clothes, but it would be silly and ridiculous for men to wear women's clothes.

I suppose I am speculating a lot about the motives behind this clothing line, which isn't fair of me. I'm just a little tired of seeing 'unisex' clothing that is nothing more than masculine clothing deemed socially acceptable to be worn by women.

Woops, sorry! I didn't read the later comments in the thread, so I hadn't noticed people had already pointed it out.

Why is gender-neutral awesome? How about gender-non-neutral being marketed to people of any sex?

Seems more representative of diversity (and like it'd provide more exciting options for people getting dressed in the morning).

Color me unimpressed.

Gender neutral clothing is inherently sizist because it will only work for small sized individuals -- fat individuals need tailored clothes because their bodies become more shaped by their secondary sex traits, such as wide hips, large breasts for women or large bellies for men. If you're going to make a sociological argument around gendered clothing, you need to also pay attention to the it's inherent anti-fat rhetoric. :/

The longer I ruminate on this gender-neutral idea, the more wrong it feels. Distinct gender traits bring color to our culture.

The problem is not with those distinct differences, but in assigning a single gender to a single sex.

Right??

Also, the most important things to consider when choosing clothing for yourself or your children is comfort, fit and aesthetic (and aesthetic should speak to your personal preferences and what makes you feel strong/beautiful/pretty/delicate/athletic/pick your adjective[s]).

There is nothing wrong with clothing companies producing the variety of clothes that they do, or with their drawing inspiration from body forms. Buy what you like, and insist that the *marketing* of those clothes broaden the target audience.

Right???

@Simone: indeed. It's something of a tangent, but really ... if we hand over the tasks we used to own (making our clothes, for example) then we have to expect a long transition period while the collective unconscious catches up to the diversity of its individuals and provides them the options they want but don't want to produce for themselves.

(Apparently I can't reply to some of the replies above, so I'll start up the conversation here, directed at Progressive Scholar and Anonymous ...)

I am not at all surprised at how many people fall outside the average; as I already said, I do ... I'm short as hell and I have never found a petite size that fits me correclty.

I've also said that the issue is that we've handed over tasks we used to tackle ourselves (making our own clothes) or in very one-on-one business deals (your relationship with your tailor or seamstress), to a much larger group trying to serve a much broader segment of the population. These groups are businesses, and in the habit of trying to make money; for that reason they target averages.

So I -- an unusually short person -- know that if I go into a business that serves the broader population, I'm simply not going to find something that fits me correctly. Because I don't like spending a lot of money on clothes, nor have the money to spend, I work with what's available.

I liked the idea someone mentioned above about how great it would be if technology gave us a machine that built clothes on demand and to spec. That is probably *the* ultimate solution.

But in the meantime, we need to figure out how to tap new designers -- and to encourage designers who themselves fall outside the average -- to develop niche lines of clothing and help them find ways to produce those lines affordably.

I do not begrudge a big hulking industry for not being agile enough to respond to niches; I *would* be disappointed if there are a lot of conversations like this happening across this industrious country of ours without new businesses popping up to answer the call.

Many of you have focused on physical attributes and design differences, but gendered clothing is more than that -- and is much more limited for boys than girls. Why does unisex clothing look like boys' clothing? Because girls can wear overalls but boys can't wear dresses in US mainstream culture. Nor flowers, nor anything pretty, cute, whimsical, etc. Boys can have "icky" bugs like spiders but butterflies? Colors are also gendered beyond pink - after 12 month size, almost all boy clothing is navy, brown, or rust. If a shirt has a bright color, it almost always has a sports or other "masculine" design. And if you think to just buy a bright colored shirt from the girls' dept, you'll find it is not only yellow, but also pouf-sleeved, lace-trimmed, and possibly cropped. There is a strong sense that crossing over is dangerous. (There is no reason Target can't have a t-shirts and jeans section in the middle of its children's section for both boys and girls, but I have repeatedly heard parents asking, "Is this boys' or girls'?" for items that aren't clearly enough gendered for them.)

There are steps between mass-produced and commissioned/tailored and I think they are the key to creating more diverse options. Voting with your dollar will never work if you are shopping at Target or Macy's, because the pink boy's t-shirt won't be there to buy. A publisher of a children's trade magazine told me that new designers always insist they are going to move away from pink for girls, but eventually they give in because "that is what the public expects and buys." That may be true if your goal is world-domination -- being picked up by major outlets distributed everywhere. But if you're content to have a smaller market, I think the story would be different. However, it does cost more to shop at local stores, to buy products from smaller lines and companies. As a folklorist who is studying hyper-gendered kids' clothes, I talk to many, many parents who are frustrated by the options available to them. But they don't see a way to create a call effectively for different options, so they just pick the best of what's available.

if i imagine the average clothing store, perhaps 300sq meters in size, that was unisex (rather than having mens/women departments)... i dunno... i like skirts, dresses and shirts that have a waist, so if they were mixed in there with the stuff that i am not into, i might be frustrated. most clothes at the men's department dont interest me because of colors, styles and so on, except for cargo pants, which i went and bought a couple times.

anyway, i see many here would like unisex clothing stores. but i wanted to voice that not everyone votes for that. i am afraid even the majority of people might not want it, but i am not sure since i didnt make a study on this.

As hip as I'd like to think think that I am on gender issues. I must say that I am not 100% sold on the idea of gender neutral clothing. It is bad enough trying to find clothing for very curvy women in general..

and although I hate to go there because it is a stereotype, but it is also a scientific fact.. lets be realistic.. African American women ARE differently shaped than both Caucasian females and drastically different than for example white males.

for example females with bigger backsides.. ones pants being pulled down buy their rear end if its shapely.. I would love to see what kind of "gender neutral" pants they could come out with that is appropriate for example for black females and white males without having too much extra seat there or too little..

I feel like the typical shape of african american women is already not considered when making women's clothing in general in many stores and i feel like it will be considered even less in a gender neutral store..

I think that gendered clothes for adult men and women makes sense, they are shaped very differently and also they dress different, a man is not going to wear a skirt or dress to work and a woman is not going to fit in a man's dress suit either. Children's clothes are basically unisexed except for the colors or if it's a dress or not.

Also I believe that it is not easy to make "unisex" clothes for little kids, because what colors are the boys anf girls going to wear?...Black, Dark Blue, Dark Green ect. Another thing is that all these kids would be look like little clones because they would have no option to wear anything gender specific.

I feel that men and women should have different clothing. It is true that we are built very differently, I personally would not feel comfortable going to school in a polo and baggy jeans and I am pretty sure my guy friends would not want to go to school in heels and skirts. As far as children go they are more able to be unisex because at the age of 1-5 yrs. they all look pretty much the same and are built similarly.

Frank I am sorry, but I am going to have to disagree...there are many males now a days that wear pink and baby blue and yellow, and girls who dress in dark masculine colors. I do not think that it is hard to make unisex clothes. Everyone is entitled to their own personal style, but I think if we make a line of unisex clothes we would be surprised how many people would actually buy them.

What I was saying was that little kids are not all going to want to wear "unisex" clothes, for example little girls might want to wear a sparkly dress but a little boy will most likely not, therefore reguardless if little kids are shaped the same they probably do not want to wear the same kind of clothing.

Frank when they are young enough I really do not think they would care what they wear...usually kids do not care until they reach pubery!!!

Alright Rosa, but I do not think parents want their little girls dressed like little boys and parents don't their sons dressed like little girls!

That is besides the point...the whole term unisex means that both sexes will be able to wear the same thing without having it be considered masculine or feminine. Get it right Frank!!!

wera what you want to wear. some guys wear girl clothing and girls choose to wear guy clothing sometime. its all about how you want to be precieved by others

i just looked at the clothes in the uni section, then the clothes in the gendered sections.

the clothes in the uni section are identical to the clothes in the boy section.

gender-neutral my ass.

Uh, Rosa? When I was five years old I would fall into a deep depression every time my mother put me in a dress. Don't assume a child is stupid, just because you were raised to believe children should be seen and not heard.

I looked at the POP web site, starting with the "child" section, then the "boy" section, having the exact same reaction as the Anonymous Dec 1, 2010 post. Then after 20 minutes, I had to stop myself, and go look at the "girl" section. Aside from the obvious undies and bathing suits, there were some dresses, skirts, and butterfly prints, but the bulk of the section was simply "child" clothing. Again, I had made the assumption that neutral meant male. But if I think about my life, and so many other posts on this blog, for so long MAN meant HUMAN, but not necessarily WOMAN, so if I want to play basketball in shorts, or wear jeans and steel-toes on a construction site, or BDUs to work, then I need to accept the fact that if I want to use functional things, I need to stop associating functionality with masculinity because to do so only continues the assumption of femininity being frivolous. I am just a person who sometimes needs pockets and sturdy cloth, and who just doesn't look good in lemon yellow and who thinks floral prints are okay for hotel curtains, but not okay for sweaters. I also think the hassles of always making sure my legs are tightly clamped together and avoiding windy conditions or walking on grass make skirts and heels impractical.

I have a little girl who loves headbands and skirts and bows and rainbows and all things pretty, much to my disappointment. I tried to raise her more neutrally, but eventually had to let her do what she wanted to do. Even subtly buying her (girls') jeans backfired because she would not wear them. Now she won't even wear pants without a skirt over them. I had to face that my need for her to be a "tomboy" conflicted with her own idea of herself and what makes her happy. And happiness, to her, is a big twirly dress and pink sparkly mary jane shoes. I don't even own a skirt.

I would love to start a children's clothing line that is simple, functional (POCKETS! My little girl loved to pick up rocks and leaves and carry around marbles and toys as much as any boy! But she had to suffer, thick, dark pants for that.), and gender neutral enough that handing down an entire wardrobe to a child of the opposite sex would require very little thinning, and most of that in the underwear. The closest I have found is Hanna Anderson, but even there, the neutral stuff can be found on the boys' side of the store.

"I have a little girl who loves headbands and skirts and bows and rainbows and all things pretty, much to my disappointment. I tried to raise her more neutrally, but eventually had to let her do what she wanted to do. Even subtly buying her (girls’) jeans backfired because she would not wear them. Now she won’t even wear pants without a skirt over them. I had to face that my need for her to be a “tomboy” conflicted with her own idea of herself and what makes her happy. And happiness, to her, is a big twirly dress and pink sparkly mary jane shoes. I don’t even own a skirt."

I think the point is letting your child dress how they want. If someone said the above about their son, it wouldn't bother me anymore than it does that some girls like the girly clothes. My theory is the more we are comfortable with people dressing how they want be it unisex, opposite gender or even the same as we know it, the happier children and people will be. I think some people who choose to do surgeries (trans) may choose not too if everyone was acceptive. Some still would and there is nothing wrong with either choice (dressing trans or changing sex). On the other hand, an air of acceptance would allow those who choose surgery to feel more accepted too because the attitude of do what you want I like you anyways, will make them feel more accepted as well. Me personally I go from being more androgynous to more female and back again. What ever I feel like at that time in my life. I see nothing wrong with someone dressing male one day, female the next, a mixture of both the next and completely unisex the next. And why should it be ok for me to buy stuff out of the mens department but not for a man to go into the womens? As the author points out, it should just be a clothing store. Your style is your style--not necessarily your gender.

Gender based clothing is just another practice of ours that demarcates the differences between sexes in society. Children by birth have no such thoughts of their own, but as they grow, people around them make them realize about their identity as male or female. Their behavior and liking are shaped like wise. 
I strongly appreciate unisex clothing rather than deep neck blouses for women and collared shirts for men. It can be a step ahead to minimize the pseudo differences between the two. May be decrease sex based crimes and move closer towards a better civilization.well said,the-way-it-is isn’t the-way-it-has-to-be

more about this issue in fashion fetish gender blog:
http://fashion-fetish-gender.blogspot.com/

Polarn o. Pyret is a SWEDISH clothing company. Just saying..

While I would appreciate gender non-discrimination in clothing, people are not uniform in shape. Yes, a flat-chested (biologically) woman will fit well in the same clothes as a fit (biologically) man. However, there are many (biologically) women who have these huge things that get in the way of streamlined clothing called /breasts/. I, for example, am a 32DD and, therefore, can only buy specifically fitted clothing. While I try to not wear tees, if I were to buy a unisex t-shirt, the shirt would be either incredibly tight around the chest, or far too loose around the abdomen. I would /have/ to buy, and appreciate the existence of, fitted tees.

I'd just like to point out that when you do click on boys and girls, at least in the children 2-11, the clothes are quite similar, if not identical to each other. the unisex clothes are the major difference.

When

When I was little my mum often bought me clothes from the boys section simply because they were more colourful and had all the popular cartoon characters printed on them, while all the girls clothes were uniformly pink and only had butterfly or heart prints. If you turn on the TV you'll never see a girl playing with a lightsaber or a train set, only dolls and easy bake-ovens. It's not a bad thing for a girl to like girly things, and we shouldn't discourage them from being themselves, but we have to show kids that it's ok to boys and girls to play with the same toys or wear unisex clothes, and this needs to be reflected in the way these products are marketed.

Sorry, but your update is incorrect. Yes, there ARE "boy" and "girl" sections, but if you actually click on them, you discover it's not a choice, it's the ILLUSION of choice. All of the items listed are identical, with the order slightly changed. This is true for every category. They have, in fact, made a "principled stand", they just cater to stupid people by pretending the multiple doors don't all lead to the same showroom.

Like most parts of the country, and anger by the designer killed innocent unarmed young teenager. Black Voices spoke with the Huffington Post about this issue, and to express their views on the alleged concern in our society that people of color are always up to no good

The clothes are all unisex. The clothes in the boys and girls sections are all unisex, just put in the section based on what parents would prefer for a boy or a girl.

Far too aften "gender neutral" now has come to mean "gender-neutered". As a market anthropologist I generally see the US market streaming to one side of the ship or the other just because the herd is moving in that direction. So, let's make America think again, everyone - do we really want to neuter our children? Doesn't mean we have to force gooey princess or Rambo stereotypes, nor does it mean that boys can't be boys, and girls can have a little fun.

I wish there were more unisex clothes

io mi astengo