My name is Jenn, and I'm a 27 year old married and babied chick. In addition to a husband, a seven year old daughter, and a five year old autistic son, I also have four cats, three hermit crabs, two frogs, a few fish, and one snorty little Pug. I work from home doing a variety of writing and even some web design. I love blogging, digital photography and web design.
We’re doing a baby/kid gift swap on Lavish. It’s just getting off the ground, so those of us who want to join in are required to post the names, ages and genders of our children, their likes and dislikes, and wishlist/registry URLs. One common theme among some of us, including Allyson and myself, is no character clothing.
Naturally, someone asked why.
Character clothing, which, by the way, refers to articles of clothing that are adorned with characters from television shows, cartoons, movies, artists and the like, is just… ugh. TACKY. I can’t stand it. Alyssa has a *lot* of clothes, and she has one character clothing item. I didn’t buy it. My mother did. She got it for Alyssa for her third birthday, and it’s only because it was a gift and Alyssa loves it to death that it’s still around. It’s a Disney princess themed nightgown, so at least I don’t have to take her outside in it.
I know this sounds terrible and very snobby of me, but I used to (I say used to because I rarely go to Wal-mart… hate that place with a passion, ugh!) see a lot of bedraggled, dirty kids in Walmart with their ghetto fabulous parents, and they’re always decked out in character stuff, right down to the bottles and pacifiers and pacifier clips. It makes me cringe.
I also loathe the push of certain characters for the genders, and ONLY those characters. For instance, the Disney princesses, Dora and Hello Kitty for the girls, and Spiderman, Cars, Diego and Spongebob for the boys.
What do you think of character clothing?
For me, character clothing for kids are like those slogan t-shirts for adults. You know the “ANGEL BABY 1969″ t-shirts or what-have-you. I think it’s tacky and well, gross. It’s also lazy (you find out that your kid loves Finding Nemo so you deck them out in clownfish? Why not keep the clothes neutral?) and free advertising for companies that don’t need it.
With adults, just as kids, I have less of a problem with the brand names, as long as it’s creatively/tastefully done. GAP or the American Eagle eagle on a t-shirt isn’t nearly as irritating as “HOTTIE.” But that’s just me =)