My (soon-to-be) sister-in-law and niece were staying with us this weekend and they brought some gorgeous presents for the baby. My sister-in-law has impeccable taste in children’s clothing, so the Gap onesie and jumper she gave him were just stunning. Even better, they would look just as good on a boy or a girl…

I get a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the instant genderfication of babies (not a word, but it should be). Right from the minute they’re born, the sex of the baby is seen as one of the most important things about them: boys dressed in blue and girls dressed in pink. Even congratulatory cards always scream “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” as if the baby’s gender is the relevant bit of information for celebration.

I spend ages, when giving new baby cards to others, looking for non blue or pink ones, without the B or G words emblazoned on the front. It’s amazing how hard it is to find nice gender-neutral cards that simply congratulate someone on the actual existence of new arrival, rather than the fact it happened to be a boy / girl…

And then we get to baby clothes… Well, suffice to say, it’s even more difficult to find unisex baby clothes (once they’ve outgrown the ubiquitous white all-in-ones anyway). When I come to the point of designing the fabrics for my baby range, it’s really important to me to make baby clothes that can be worn by boys and girls.

The trick, I suppose, is to pick new designs that haven’t yet been appropriated for one or other sex. Personally, I think a tractor is a great motif and would be fabulous for a boy or girl, but put one onto a jumper and you can guarantee everyone will think it’s a boy inside. I also want to make sure I stick to neutral colours where possible. I am imagining some heritage greens and greys…

Anyway, enough ranting, instead here’s a round up of some of my favourite unisex baby clothes available to buy at the moment.

Click on the pictures to go straight through to the websites where they’re for sale.

Baby Gap is my favourite shop when it comes to high quality, well-designed and well-fitting baby clothes. The only reason his whole wardrobe isn’t Baby Gap is the prices. While I’m sure the quality of their product justifies the cost, I still can’t afford to spend £15 on a T-shirt that will only last for two months. That said, we’ve been lucky enough to receive a few items as presents. The few pieces he does have are absolute staples in his wardrobe…

From their current winter collection, this cable jumper is utterly adorable:

And the shade of green on this jumper is just beautiful. (Plus, a cow is super cool):

I’ve never shopped in Next baby myself, but we’ve received a few presents of Next clothes and I’ve always thought they’re made from nice fabric and fit really well. These baby sleepsuits are very cute:

I have to confess, I can’t stand the Mothercare white newborn “essential” collections: I think the cotton is cheap and becomes hard and misshapen after a few washes and the shape of the babygrows  is far too wide at the waist. But once you move past day-long babygrow wearing into a world of T-shirts and jumpers, Mothercare really comes into its own. And you can’t beat these prices…

I really love pretty much everything from Organics for Kids. We’ve been lucky to have been given a couple of their babygrows. Their farmyard range at the moment is stunning:

So, there you go, a few nice options in the shops at the moment if you want some non-gendered baby clothes. I notice that I’ve only put in babygrows and jumpers here. I suppose trousers / skirts really do end up being for boys or girls… (Well, skirts anyway. Even I would draw the line at dressing my baby boy in skirts, and I do purposefully put him in pink now and again.)