Letting children be children…

As a Mum herself, this Fashionista welcomes the move by the British Retail Consortium and nine of of its key retailer members including John Lewis, Asda and Marks & Spencer who have taken the initiative and worked together to develop guidelines for childrenwear.

The BRC is encouraging other retailers to adopt their Responsible Retailing: BRC (British Retail Consortium) Childwear Guidelines” in order to demonstrate the retail sector’s determination that UK childrenswear ‘should be the best in the world in offering a wide choice of practical, fun and appropriate clothing for the Under 12s, to suit everyone’s budget.’

The guidelines were launched yesterday ahead of today’s publication of the government’s review led by Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of the Mother’s Union, on the “Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood’, which reviewed a range of product categories from pop music and television programmes, but also focused on kids clothing.

The BRC’s guidelines fall into the broad categories of styling, marketing and sizing/labelling of children’s clothing. The guidelines have many practical recommendations including:

colour ranges, slogans and imagery must be age appropriate
under wiring is unnecessary for first bras
marketing should feature children in natural poses
children’s party shoes should be ‘pretty’ rather than ‘adult’

Fashionista looks forward to retailers adopting these or similar guidelines so that the children of today can grow in confidence and develop free from the pressure and anxieties concerning body shape and image that will inevitably form a significant part of their teenage years.