Strolling through a kids’ clothing store is a lesson in gender stereotypes: The girls’ aisle is awash in pastels, sequins, unicorns, and princesses; the boys’ aisle is grounded in blues, greens, dinosaurs, and trucks. This presents problems for kids who don’t feel like they fit neatly into these gendered categories, or parents who don’t want their kids to feel trapped by these over-simplified notions of gender.
Elizabeth Brunner, a San Francisco-based fashion designer, wanted to give her 8-year-old twins more clothing options. So she launched her own kids’ clothing label, StereoType, which offers comfortable clothes for everyday wear that aren’t explicitly masculine or feminine, but have qualities of both in each piece: There are black track pants embellished with sparkly stripes down the side; a comfy French terry blazer with colorful patches and gold trim; and a frilly purple skirt that can also be worn as a cape. The pieces, which cost between $30 and $129, are available exclusively on the StereoType website.
Most of these brands target girls (and their parents) who are looking for more than just rainbow and butterfly prints on their outfits. But none take the approach of inviting boys to wear clothes that are traditionally gendered female, like tutus. This, Brunner believes, is what the market was missing and what she wanted to create through StereoType, which is why her website is full of pictures of boys styled with skorts and frilly skirts.
Brunner encouraged each of them to pick whatever outfits felt most comfortable to them. But when she was out with her kids, she noticed that strangers often commented on how her son wasn’t supposed to be wearing such feminine outfits. “In our culture, people are comfortable with the idea of a tomboy girl, but even in a liberal place like San Francisco, people have problems with a boy wearing girls’ clothes,” she says. “Strangers would come up to tell him he was doing something wrong by dressing that way. They would say things that were so rude, I won’t repeat them here.”
This time, she applied her experience to designing kids’ clothes that combine traditionally feminine and masculine elements into a cohesive look. As her children have gotten older and started picking their own clothes when they shop with her, they’ve come up with a more nuanced approach to dressing, constantly blending pieces from the boys’ and girls’ sections. Her daughter still loves black, but she occasionally wears dresses as long as they’re not pastel and covered in glitter. Her son blends princess T-shirts with camo shorts. Their approach has informed every piece in the collection. Brunner also worked on making the garments eco-friendly: She uses recycled fibers when possible and makes all the pieces locally, in San Francisco, so they don’t have to be shipped long distances.
Brunner’s goal is not just to give boys like her son pieces they’ll love. She wants to normalize clothes that allow kids to embrace both their masculine and feminine sides, so that fewer people will fling barbs at boys who chose to wear skirts. “I remember the first time my son wore a princess skirt,” Brunner says. “His eyes just lit up as he began to twirl; he kept deliberately falling on his bum to see the skirt fly up into the air. You could see how happy he was. Shouldn’t all kids feel that happy when they dress in the morning?”