Blue for a boy, pink for a girl. Is that really 2015?

Blue for a boy, pink for a girl. Is this really true in 2015? As owner of the Little Department Store I have spent the last 5 years buying in baby and children’s clothing collections and selling them to customers world wide. It seems that the trend is to pull away from the traditional stereotypical pink and blue and move to more challenging prints and colours. Take for example Mini Rodini. They have spent years spoiling us with the most amazing prints, all unisex without a hint of suggesting that a boy cannot wear pink and a girl should not wear blue. Another fine example is Mingo Kids, a truly wonderful collection that is built up of comfortable basics with a focus on black, an increasingly popular color that we find more and more in our favourite shops.

In in 2014 I decided to extend my online business with a brick and stone shop. One where the door opens and closes and the customers walk in and chat. A place where children run around and pick out the pieces that they want. (and more often than not something that their parents absolutely did not come for!)

This has been a great experience. One thing I have learned over over the last 18 months remains fundamental. It seems that however much we try to sway out kids to the trend for alternative colours, it remains a simple face – girls like pink and boys don’t! I am not saying girls don’t like blue, because some of them do.

For this article I ran a test. I asked 10 little girls and 10 little boys to choose between the 2 Mini Rodini panther sweatshirts. Nine out of ten girls chose the pink and one little boy with a little persuasion said he might consider it.

Is this nature or nurture? I am not sure but one thing is clear. A very high percentage of my customers buying a present for a newborn girl will pick something pink. If they buy for a boy then green or blue. If they are not sure of the sex they will generally wait until the baby is born and then come back for the right piece.

It looks to me like we can keep on trying to move the market to more neutral clothing, but speaking with my experience, this is going to take an awful long time.  What do you think?

XJo, Kids Clothing Blog.