I was looking through these photos and my outfit and traditionally they are masculine pieces so the phrase, “borrowed from the boys” came to me for a title. Aviator jackets were originally worn by pilots, plaid pleated pants were originally worn by grandpa’s men and the same goes for a white dress shirt? You can also think of this outfit as sexy, we know the movie scenes where a woman wakes up the next morning and puts on her partner’s dress shirt on as an outfit. As a mom of two girls I wonder: will they look at this outfit in 20 years and think it’s masculine? Will they know the same or have similar movie references?

Today we see an increase in the neutral and unisex everywhere: gender-neutral bathrooms, and not using masculine or feminine personal pronouns, ie. saying, “hey folks” instead of, “hey guys”. Many stores, like Zara and Oak & Fort, have unisex clothing. My coat featured here, here and here is unisex. Recently, I found myself in the boys section shopping for my 3 year old because I didn’t want her to have a pink A-line raincoat with bunnies ears on them. For some reason I was bothered by feminizing such a basic and practical piece of clothing and now I realize I was annoyed that there wasn’t a more neutral option for her upcoming grey/black graphic/white and yellow spring wardrobe. My options were flowers or pink. She probably would’ve loved it since it’s a cute and fun coat and she errs on the cute and fun… as she herself is cute and fun! Instead I shopped in the boys section and found her a classic yellow raincoat. (A video of my shopping trip can be found here). As Lux gets older we will see what she chooses to wear, she’s not particular right now, but until then I feel like dressing in more neutral colours and shapes works.

I’m very curious to see what “feminine” and “masculine” dressing will look like 20 years. What will a “feminine” outfit look like? How will we describe what we wear? What will be our inspiration? What are your thoughts? If you have kids in your life when did they start making their own clothing decisions?

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