In October 2013, Jennifer Muhm's 4-year-old babe declared she capital to be an astronaut for Halloween. But back the mom and babe addled through accoutrement catalogs and saw alone boys dressed as astronauts, the little babe afflicted her mind.
Muhm's acquaintance Malorie Catchpole had a agnate experience. She was clumsy to acquisition alternation underpants for girls, which her toddler babe had requested for Christmas -- they were alone accessible for little boys.
Muhm and Catchpole took affairs into their own easily and launched buddingSTEM, their own band of science-themed clothes for girls. Their badly acknowledged Kickstarter attack has aloft over $60,000 back its conception in March 2015.
BuddingSTEM is allotment of a growing trend of crowdfunded accouterment brands with a gender stereotype-bashing mission. Frustrated by the abridgement of array in boys' and girls' accouterment -- decidedly back it comes to science-themed shirts for girls -- at atomic a dozen altered parents accept launched their own baby curve of inclusive, allotment kids' clothes. Often, parents about-face to sites like Kickstarter to armamentarium their businesses.
These accouterment curve assignment to action the gender norms that assume so common in kids' accoutrement options by alms pinks and purples for both boys and girls, as able-bodied as designs with trucks, dinosaurs, planets and added commonly "boy-ish" images for girls.
Though these baby accouterment curve aftermath agnate products, Handsome in Blush architect Jo Hadley told The Huffington Post, "We do not see anniversary added as antagonism but rather as afflatus to accumulate affective the gender empowerment movement advanced for boys and girls."
And baby as the brands may be, the movement they abutment is boring extensive added boilerplate companies. J. Crew is currently affairs a alternation of science-themed clear tees for both boys and girls, as allotment of a affiliation with the American Museum of Natural History. Lands' End responded to a mom's viral complaint about its gender stereotyping shirts with a band of STEM-related options for girls.
Without added ado, actuality are 12 parent-founded kids' accouterment curve that claiming gender stereotypes one shirt at a time.
1. Girls Will Be
Texas mom Sharon Choksi launched Girls Will Be with her ancestors David and Laura Burns in 2013 afterwards her babe Maya lamented the abridgement of accouterment options applicable her adventuresome personality. In March 2014, she auspiciously aloft over $30,000 in Kickstarter donations to armamentarium production. From shirts with robots, sharks, and added fun designs to non-"shorty" shorts that leave allowance for alive around, Girls Will Be offers clothes that appearance "there is added than one way to be a girl."
As Choksi told The Huffington Post, "Girls Will Be designs clothes with colors above pink, no sparkles or frills, stereotype-busting graphics, and a fit that lets girls be kids."
2. Handsome in Pink
Handsome in Blush is the abstraction of mom Jo Hadley, who launched the Oakland-based accouterment band in 2007 back her toddler son was activity through a big "pink and amethyst phase." As the brand's website states, "We accept that colors (such as blush and purple) and alive adumbration (such as firetrucks, apparatus belts, and electric guitars) accord to anybody and should be mingling, not adding up forth gender lines."
With a consistently growing band of allotment clothes -- like a "Forget Princess, Call Me President" shirt for girls -- Handsome in Blush is still advancing today, the mom told The Huffington Post. And as for Hadley's son, the now-10 year old still counts amethyst as his admired color.
3. Svaha
Jaya Halepete Iyer of Oakton, Virginia created a accouterment band alleged Svaha in account of her 3-year-old daughter, who wants to be an astronaut back she grows up. Dismayed at the abridgement of space-themed shirts for girls, the mom absitively to abode what she sees as "a cogent gender bent that exists in the kids' accoutrement industry," she wrote on Kickstarter. Svaha's shirt architecture motifs accommodate sports, firefighters, dinosaurs, astronauts, and architecture equipment.
Though she was clumsy to accommodated her Kickstarter allotment ambition aftermost month, Halepete Iyer wrote on the Svaha Facebook page, "I achievement to be able to get these t-shirts to all of you in some way hopefully ancient absolute soon."
4. Sewing Circus
U.K. cast Sewing Circus began at mom Francesca Aiken's kitchen table, area she created science-related dresses and skirts for her babe Scarlett by hand. "All the capacity that absorbed her were awash to boys alone on the U.K. aerial street," she writes on the company's website. "I actively capital to acquaint girls like Scarlett -- Space, Dinosaurs, Bugs and Trains -- are for you as abundant as boys." Today, Sewing Circus is a absolutely fledge business that sells handmade clothes to barter beyond Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
5. Jessy & Jack
Vibrant colors and fun images abound in the designs by Jessy & Jack. Seattle mom Courtney Hartman launched the cast through a Kickstarter attack aftermost summer, and now she sells gender-neutral shirts, onesies, and bibs on the Jessy & Jack online store.
As the website states, "We anticipate that adding animals, altar and hobbies into 'girl stuff' and 'boy stuff' is silly, so we architecture things that both girls and boys can love." And for every bodice Jessy & Jack sells, the cast donates a shirt to kids in need.
6. Quirkie Kids
Quirkie Kids started in March 2014 as a Kickstarter-funded band of blush shirts for both girls and boys. "Some boys like blush and why not?" architect Martine Zoer writes on the brand's website. "Pink is aloof a blush and so is green, and blue, and yellow." Today, Quirkie Kids sells a array of gender-neutral shirts in abounding colors and patterns.
7. Jill and Jack Kids
When Jenn Neilson went arcade for her babe for the aboriginal time, she was aghast to acquisition that the girls' departments were abounding of "pink and and frills" while the boys' departments were all about "trucks and sports," the Canadian mom writes on the Kickstarter folio for her children's accouterment cast Jill and Jack Kids.
"Even admitting I apperceive lots of kids who adulation these things, best boys are into added than aloof sports, and we charge to acquaint girls that alike if they like princesses, it’s air-conditioned to like added actuality -- like dinosaurs -- too!"
After adopting over $20,000 to about-face her cast eyes into absoluteness aftermost June, Neilson sells bright clothes for adventuresome accouchement on the Jill and Jack Kids website.
8. Angel Free Zone
With a band of allotment t-shirts and books for girls, Angel Free Zone offers "an another to angel and pink." Architect and admiral Michele Yulo says her "feisty" babe Gabriela was the afflatus for the brand, as she banned to abrasion dresses, lace, billowy sleeves, and added stereotypically "girly" clothes. As Yulo states on the Angel Free Zone website, “Girls charge to apperceive that they can do annihilation they appetite -- that ability accommodate beating a attach into a bank or acclimation a burst faucet."
9. BuddingSTEM
Seattle moms Jennifer Muhm and Malorie Catchpole created BuddingSTEM afterwards bonding over their aggregate annoyance at the abridgement of accouterment options for their amplitude and train-loving daughters. Their badly acknowledged Kickstarter attack has aloft over $60,000 and counting to date. Alms science-themed shirts, pants, dresses, and alike underpants, BuddingSTEM lets girls "wear clothes that allege to their interests," the founders told The Huffington Post.
"Girls shouldn't accept to accomplish a best amid actuality feminine and cogent their adulation of science, or sports, or annihilation really!"
10. Angel Awesome
After adopting an alarming $215,691 on Kickstarter, D.C.-area moms Rebecca Melsky and Eva St. Clair are adamantine at assignment bringing their "Princess Awesome" accouterment designs to life. "We accept that if a babe cast amethyst and additionally cast trucks, she should be able to abrasion a amethyst barter dress. And if a babe cast princesses and additionally aliens, again an conflicting angel brim is for her," the Kickstarter folio reads.
11. Aggressive Trees
Climbing Copse is an accessible bodice cast set to barrage this summer. Mom Cheryl Rickman and her 6-year-old "dinosaur-loving, football-crazy daughter" conceived of the cast as a band-aid to the abridgement of clothes for girls with such interests.
"Girls like dinosaurs, robots and monsters too and should be able to acquisition clothes featuring those motifs in the girls aisle," Rickman writes on the company's Facebook page. And, the mom told The Huffington Post, a allotment of accumulation from anniversary bodice awash will go to The Woodland Trust to bulb added trees, "because the Aggressive Copse aggregation loves copse (and aggressive them)."
12. Pigtail Pals & Ballcap Buddies
From its absolute anatomy angel shirts to its "Redefine Girly" designs, Pigtail Pals & Ballcap Buddies provides a abundant alternative of allotment clothes for boys and girls. Mom Melissa Atkins Wardy created the cast to action the arresting limitations and stereotypes she noticed in children's clothing.
As the Pigtail Pals & Ballcap Buddies website states, "Melissa capital accoutrement that reflected an artistic and assorted adolescence for her babe and son. PPBB is all about acknowledging the abstraction there are abounding means to be a kid and that every kid is Abounding of Awesome."
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