In case you hadn’t heard, minimalist fashion for kids is now a thing and trendy parents are purging their children’s wardrobes of sequins, glitter and everything hot pink faster than they’re cutting refined sugars from their play lunch.
Shopping for kids is already an exercise in frustration for both parties – and that’s without having to distract them away from the sizable portion of the market dedicated to Spiderman and Dora emblazoned T-shirts.
Is insisting little Evie/Nico/Frankie/Anais wear tasteful, adult-approved clothes more work than it’s worth? And who would spend the money and risk the potential tantrums just to see their dear littl’un in a pared-down, straw-coloured cotton dress or engineer-stripe pants and logo-free, Margiela-esque sweatshirt?
An increasing number of parents are going sparkle-free, buying up items bereft of bows, rainbows and logos in an attempt to impart their own minimalist dress sense on their children. There are households where tutus and superhero merch are reserved for dress-ups only, kept in the toy tidy alongside the Barbies and Skylanders.
A number of brands – Zaikamoya from Brooklyn and Bonpoint from Paris, for example – are doing kid’s clothing you yourself wouldn’t mind wearing. Unfortunately, they’ve grown-up price points to match despite their no-frills aesthetic.
Crocs, your kid’s preferred option 99 per cent of the time when allowed to choose their own shoes, have been kyboshed in favour of minimalist sneakers, gunmetal Hunter wellies and monochromatic slides. Let Alexander Wang’s niece and front-row fixture Aila Wang or fictional Pinterest style icon Quinoa show you and your family how it’s done. As Quinoa’s ‘mother’ writes, "When out in public with Quinoa, I can hear the sound of hipster ovaries swelling with want.”
What came first – the simple-chic children’s clothing or the demand for it? That’s as complicated as the chicken-or-egg quandary. “If the bandwidth devoted to kid-friendly organic recipes and Suri Cruise's footwear is any indication, childhood has never been more fetishised than it is by the current generation of parents,” writes Christine Lennon for the Wall Street Journal.
The minimalist movement appeals to a certain type of parent. They subscribe to quarterly food journals, believe in biodynamic baby food and wouldn’t hesitate to fork out for an Alexander Calder-inspired cot mobile. Yes, they’ll welcome colour by way of a Liberty floral-print dress and the Pantone: Color book one cool aunt got their baby for Christmas, but other than that, their kid’s wardrobe is predominantly cottons, linens and wools in creams, greys, beige and navy.
Some of the under-six set don’t need prompting from their parents, gravitating toward the minimalist look naturally. We find they are part of an increasingly common breed of toddler who was brought up on Baby Mozart and organic diapers and elects to eat beetroot-cured salmon over sauce-dunked McNuggets any day. My nephew, for example, prefers a muted colour palette and will only wear long-sleeved T-shirts with his indigo-wash, ultra-skinny jeans. His favourite foods also happen to be pecorino and pear, consumed in one mouthful. An under-age, card-holding member of the design-foodie elite, he wouldn’t be caught dead in a sports T-shirt, let alone one with Ben 10 printed on the front.
How picky is too picky? The key here is balance. Clothing, whatever colour (or non-colour), is an outlet for children to express themselves. Allowing them to wear what they want to wear – whether that be tutus, garish light-up sneakers or indulging their love for mismatched prints – teaches them to listen to their own voice and learn what feels right for them.
Then again you could always think like us and have your child live in hand-me-downs forever. Seriously, what’s the point of buying new when they’re going to sneeze and vomit on them anyway?Read more:formal dresses online shopping
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