skirtcafe.org

The link only goes to an article about two boys who wear dresses - nothing about a supplier who makes dresses for boys.

Dennis I clicked under the pitcher with the boy in the stripe dress.

Sinned wrote: ↑Mon Jul 26, 2021 10:31 pm The link only goes to an article about two boys who wear dresses - nothing about a supplier who makes dresses for boys.

Hi Dennis. Primary.com is the clothing manufacturer. The earlier link is to their blog, but if you go to the base url you will see all of the items they have for sale.

From their FAQ -

Why don’t you have boys and girls sections?

Since the very beginning, we have offered every style and every color for every kid. This means we organize our shopping experience into two simple categories, “baby” and “kid” instead of “boy” and “girl.” Why? Because clothes and colors don’t have genders, so it never made sense to us to organize them as if they do. We make dresses for kids who wear dresses, pants for kids who wear pants, PJs for kids who wear PJs. We make the clothes, but kids make the choices.

Thank you both. I'll have a look later today. I had a hard, busy day at work, it's late and I need some sleep.

FranTastic444 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 2:55 am Since the very beginning, we have offered every style and every color for every kid. This means we organize our shopping experience into two simple categories, “baby” and “kid” instead of “boy” and “girl.” Why? Because clothes and colors don’t have genders, so it never made sense to us to organize them as if they do. We make dresses for kids who wear dresses, pants for kids who wear pants, PJs for kids who wear PJs. We make the clothes, but kids make the choices.

Hi Frantastiic
From a childrenswear retailer this is a really nice statement.
I'd just like to think that the kids, boys in particular, are actually allowed the choice.
Not all are blessed with enlightened parents.
Steve.

Big and Bashful wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 12:39 pm

Sinned wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:43 am The North has been hot too.

I live west of Glasgow on the coast, my house faces North and is next to a cliff, it is maybe 170 years old and the walls are stone, getting on for 2 feet thick (for you metric kids- 2 feet thick but spoken slowly and loudly). Yesterday evening I took my infernal red thermometer and checked stuff. A piece of my house which gets no Sun, not never, no direct heat at all, clocked at 31.1 centigrades, I will do the conversion for you, that's 31.1 degrees Celsius. We have been baking for days now. Not complaining! in Scotland on the West coast, dry weather and hot weather are to be treasured!
The hottest temperature I found was a green steel cabinet which was in the Sun and over 70 centipedes, which equates to quite a lot of Fahrenheits and then some!

Mustn't grumble!

You forgot to convert the age of the home for the metric folks, so here goes: 170 years is almost 5.4 giga-seconds. You're welcome.

The HEMA (an originally Dutch store) went for a non-gendered approach to children's clothing a couple of years ago after they released a new line with two jumpers with the following texts:

* ‘little boy, big ideas’
* ‘little girl, big smiles’

The succeeding ruckus means they now just have a children department with everything and gender neutral names.

After all, body shapes are no issue at that age. You can debate whether the store did the right thing or not, but it doesn't matter: parents are the driving force no matter how the shop is laid out.

rode_kater wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:33 pm You can debate whether the store did the right thing or not, but it doesn't matter: parents are the driving force no matter how the shop is laid out

And the Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts plus anyone else who will exert any influence over the actual parents' decisions.
The kids' own preferences could be very low down the scale.
Steve.

I think primary.com - and that specific blog post of theirs - has come up in the past, and I applaud their efforts to normalise boys wearing whatever they fancy.

It's wonderful that they market their dresses to youngsters of all flavours, but I'll be even more excited when mainstream retailers specifically market skirts and dresses to men.

By coincidence, on Saturday afternoon, I had some time to kill and so I had a look on the website created for my locality (my nearest small town and surrounding villages) as I have a garden tractor to sell. A thread had been created on the discussion board by the relatively new head teacher of the comprehensive school (ages 11 to 18) caught my eye in which she outlined some new policies that will apply when the school opens in September. She said that uniforms would be henceforth available from a different supplier - a national company called "Trutex" - as the store which sold them in the past has closed and these could be ordered online. She also said that there would be a single uniform list from now on that applies to both girls and boys and that was done to ensure equality and to avoid "harmful gender stereotypes" (I have no clue what that means!). There were some questions which she had answered, one of which was if the new policy meant boys could wear skirts, which she answered - and then I intervened. Below is a condensed version of the conversation thereafter:

Mrs K: …. You (not me - another contributor) ask if this means boys can now wear skirts and the answer is yes. Our policy guarantees equal treatment for both girls and boys.

Me: I have looked on the Trutex website and they supply trousers for boys, trousers for girls, and skirts only for girls. So where are boys’ skirts?

Mrs K: Well, if any boy wants to wear a skirt, he could just buy a girl’s one.

Me: So you are saying he should go to school in a girl’s uniform?

Mrs K: If he wants to wear a skirt, then presumably he wants to wear girls’ clothes because he identifies as a girl.

Me: So you are talking about a trans girl?

Mrs K: Yes if you like.Orv a child who identifies as non-binary.

Me: That means your uniform policy guarantees equality for girls, trans girls and non-binaries by giving them a genuine choice, but boys who are not trans or non-binary do not have any choice whatsoever. I don’t call that equality.

Mrs K: I think you are being deliberately obtuse.

I left it there. Was I being obtuse? I think her "new policy" is just another fudge - virtue signalling about how progressive the school is when it is not really giving all students equality at all - it's just catering for trans girls. I perhaps should have asked her why she hadn't contacted the supplier and asked them to label all their skirts as "unisex" and that would have solved the issue.

STEVIE wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:04 pm

rode_kater wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:33 pm You can debate whether the store did the right thing or not, but it doesn't matter: parents are the driving force no matter how the shop is laid out

And the Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts plus anyone else who will exert any influence over the actual parents' decisions.
The kids' own preferences could be very low down the scale.
Steve.

For a while, John Lewis dropped their gendered labels (though the mannequins they used clearly indicated who the clothes were intended for.) However, they are back to "boy" and "girl" labels.

OK - Too get back 'On Course', has there been
any follow-up to the original article/post

Uncle Al

Stu wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 12:40 pm Was I being obtuse? I think her "new policy" is just another fudge - virtue signalling about how progressive the school is when it is not really giving all students equality at all - it's just catering for trans girls. I perhaps should have asked her why she hadn't contacted the supplier and asked them to label all their skirts as "unisex" and that would have solved the issue.

Indeed it would -- but it sounds as though the problem is squarely with the manufacturer, and it might take more than one letter from a headmistress to persuade it to rethink and reconfigure its ranges. If it's the same Trutex that made my school shirts 60+ years ago, it's probably not one of your modern, agile fashion brands.

Perhaps you were a little hard on the unfortunate Mrs K, who may have other fish to fry and may have been worrying about how that exchange would look if reported in the Daily Mail.

Stu wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 12:40 pm I left it there. Was I being obtuse? I think her "new policy" is just another fudge - virtue signalling about how progressive the school is when it is not really giving all students equality at all - it's just catering for trans girls. I perhaps should have asked her why she hadn't contacted the supplier and asked them to label all their skirts as "unisex" and that would have solved the issue.

I’m not sure you were being obtuse (as I understand that word) but I suspect this has more to do with the supplier and the school is actually being quite open and egalitarian - i.e. saying you can wear whatever that supplier will supply. That they don’t market skirts for boys is a slightly separate issue I feel. The supplier could easily just remove the gender labels from the clothes and it would largely solve the problem, depending on the age of the children. Until puberty I think the body shape of girls and boys isn’t much different… it’s after that where fit and length becomes more of an issue.

Again men/boys loose out. Again they are reinforcing subtly males don't wear skirts.

Women wear skirts, girls wear skirts, trans folk. wear skirts. But No average male can wear a skirt unless he identify with one of the above categories.

Make the skirt unisex, problem solved!!!!

The basic kilted skirt is the most unisex garment on the planet. One measurement required for fitment.
If it fits the waist, it fits.

The kilted skirt.
Big butt, no butt still fits,
narrow hips, wide hips, still fits.
Really short, really tall, still fits.
One leg, two legs, still fits. (There are people that have lost a leg)
Interior plumbing, exterior plumbing, STILL fits