Wardrobe Malfunctions

The second word gets out that a baby girl is on the way, you’ll find yourself drowning in a sea of pink. Pyjamas, wondersuits, socks, dresses, pants, bibs…  ALL PINK. It’s as if Katie Price put her entire wardrobe on the wrong laundry setting and catastrophically shrunk it.

This pounding typhoon of pastel will be thrust upon you by the ‘baby boomer’ generation, your parents and aunties/uncles, as they were raised to sternly believe that girls wear pink and boys wear blue. Funnily enough, prior to the 1940’s, pink was considered a ‘strong’ colour and subsequently associated with boys, while blue was thought to be ‘dainty’, and thus bestowed upon girls. A change in tone from manufacturers and marketers lead to a paradigm shift that has lasted the best part of a century.

Then, of course, there’s the ‘frilly’ stuff. I guarantee you, someone will give you some bizarre looking frilly dress that looks like it belongs on the set of Downton Abbey, rather than be worn by an infant. I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that keeping a baby comfortable is more important than having them look like an extra from Pride & Prejudice.

I’ve never had much success following rules, always tending to do my own thing, and I’ll encourage Frankie to do the same as she gets older. Besides, girls have been told what to like and how to dress for long enough. I’m excited that Frankie will get to grow up in a world that is at long last empowering women to do and think as they please.

Now, obviously the Frankster can’t make any decisions of her own at this point, so for the time being she’s stuck with whatever Mum and Dad choose. We haven’t followed any prescribed colours or content ‘for girls’, instead we’ve just gone with stuff that we think is cool as shit. Like dinosaurs and robots. Hell I would still wear pyjamas with dinosaurs on them now if they made them for adults.

For example, Frankie’s pram liner has sugar skulls all over it, kind of like this design below. You can’t get any more badass than having skulls on your pram. (Quick plug, we got it from harmonyj.com.au, and I can vouch for the quality.)

I will admit that Mum is better at coordinating an outfit than I am, and is generally in charge of Frankie’s wardrobe, but sometimes, on the rare occasion, Dad is allowed to pick the outfit. And that is where we get to have lots of fun by picking the craziest outfit we can find. Maybe something a little like this. Frankie seems pretty stoked, and we have matching hoodies! And once she is old enough to start deciding things for herself, I’d like to think that I’ll be the Dad who is more than happy take on the supermarket with either Batgirl or a Ballerina in tow.