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John Lewis Scraps Gender Labels

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7 September 2017

By Lauren H

Over the weekend, John Lewis announced that it would be scrapping gender labels on children’s clothing.

The store has become the first business to do so, with its own brand clothing now being labelled ‘boys and girls,’ as opposed to ‘boys’ or ‘girls’, so to not ‘reinforce gender stereotypes.’

Caroline Bettis, the Head of Children’s Wear at John Lewis said:

We do not want to reinforce gender stereotypes within our John Lewis collections and instead want to provide greater choice and variety to our customers, so that the parent or child can choose what they would like to wear.

This is a move that has been praised by a lot of people, including Let Clothes Be Clothes.

In a statement a spokesperson said:

We believe John Lewis is the first high street retailer to remove its gender signs and labels.

It’s fantastic news and we hope other shops and online retailers will now move in the same direction. A T-shirt should be just a T-shirt – not a T-shirt just for girls or just for boys.

Higher-end, independent clothing retailers have been more pro-active at creating gender-neutral collections, but we hope unisex ranges will filter down to all price points. We still see many of the supermarkets, for example, using stereotypical slogans on their clothing.

However, not everyone was happy with the change.

If you’re interested in this debate, you’ll probably want to watch this.

What do you think?

 

 

 

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