Gender-neutral clothing? Yes, please!

This morning, as I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading news articles on my phone, I came across this article and the title alone got me excited. However, I wanted to read the article first before I did any celebrating, just to be sure it said what the headline actually said that it said. (Darn devious headlines!) Happily, the article was indeed about how some clothing stores out there are FINALLY recognizing that women are tired of the whole “men’s clothing” and “women’s clothing” separations in stores. I got a feeling that men might be tired of it, too. I showed this article to my daughter and told her, “It’s about time!” She read the headline, got excited and said, “Finally!”

Finally, indeed.

Both my daughter and I have NOT been happy with the clothes available for sale in the “women’s clothing” departments in stores. She just doesn’t like the designs on them and they don’t fit her right, either. (She is painfully thin and she doesn’t have much of a “figure”). As for me, I can never really find anything that I like when I shop in the “women’s clothing” department. Whenever I go through the clothes on a rack in those departments, my train of thought as I look at each item usually goes like this: Yuck. Yuck. Old lady. Yuck.

Also, I don’t like wearing clothes that are too revealing. I HATE V-collar shirts. And I also dislike shirts with a low front collar. Call me old fashioned, but I would REALLY like to wear a shirt that does not reveal the top part of my boobs. I also prefer long skirts (never one above the knee) and pris instead of shorts. Unfortunately, even in the women’s clothing department, a majority of the clothes available for sale make us out to be tramps! (I run into the same problem when shopping for a “women’s” Halloween costume. The collar is too low and the skirts are too short.) Also, I don’t particularly like wearing tops or shirts that are girly, flowery, rainbows and sunshine. Ugh.

In fact, I must confess: Almost all of the shirts I DO wear have come from the men’s department. That’s right; I buy and wear men’s clothes. They just have the COOLEST T-shirts and a lot of those clothes just fit better. And my daughter shops in the boy’s clothing department, too. (FYI: She is a gamer. Yes, there ARE girl gamers out there! And girls like stuff like zombies, skateboarding, Xtreme sports and surfing, too! But you won’t see those images on a shirt sold in the girl’s clothing department.)

The T-shirt I am actually wearing today came from the “men’s clothing” department. I bought it, and wear it, because I like the design. I like pirates, and Harley-Davidson is awesome! This is the shirt:

This is also another reason why I like to buy shirts at Hot Topic. They don’t have “men’s clothing” or “women’s clothing.” They just have all kinds of clothes on display everywhere – clothes that any guy or girl can buy. I like buying their T-shirts because they have some really cool designs and I don’t have to worry about it being for “boys” or “girls.” Their shirts are unisex. We should have more of that going on in other department stores.

I know this kinda thing is not limited to T-shirts. (As a side note, I wear T-shirts and not blouses.) This kinda thing applies to other types of clothing, too – jeans, shorts, swimwear, etc. But as far as my daughter and I are concerned, we appreciate it that there are retailers out there who are finally catching on that many consumers are growing tired of clothing being ONLY for men or ONLY for women. We gotta tear down those gender barriers! A guy should be able to buy and wear any kinda clothing he wants to in any part of a store. And you know what? So should a girl.