When I was 20, I bought my three year old cousin clothes for Christmas; cute clothes, but clothes. She opened the gift, took one look, said, “these aren’t presents”, threw them to the side and moved on to the toys. Since then, except for very small kids who don’t know the difference, maybe first Christmas or first birthday, I’ve refrained from buying clothes as gifts for kids.
Well this Christmas I broke my rule. I gave Threadless longsleeve tees to some of my favorite cold weather kids. Now, most I gave as a side gift, if you will, in addition to a toy. The idea being the parents would like the Threadless Kids tees, but the kids wouldn’t feel cheated by clothes. Well guess what. The kids loved the shirts! Henry took one look at Mammoths Were Hippies and freaked out that I had remembered that Wooly Mammoths are his FAVORITE (I didn’t, but he’d just seen a great exhibit at The Field Museum and is totally into them). Greta said, “This shirt is just like Olive’s!” having previously seen my daughter in Running Rhino. 4-year-old Tyler exclaimed, “I’ve wanted walkie talkies my whole life!” upon seeing his gift and then insisted on wearing Partly Hungry Skies to school refusing to cover it up with a sweater.
As a mom of the cutest girls in the universe (I mean, what mom’s kids aren’t the cutest?) I’m used to the “how cute”, and “awh isn’t she sweet” comments from complete strangers. I expected the “where did you get that shirt?” from other parents at the playground. But I have to admit I’ve been gleefully surprised by the response of other kids to the Threadless tees. I am talking about little kids, 2, 3, 4, 5 years old here. A little boy saw Olive in Mammoths Were Hippies at the Aquarium and exclaimed to anyone who was listening, “Look at her shirt! It has TWO elephants on it, and one has long hair and a headband”. I think some of what we here at Threadless HQ sometimes miss out on some of the IRL (in real life) commentary from kids who can’t yet express themselves in the blogs and comments of our online community.
So I ask you, what have you heard from the kids you know in response to the Threadless Kids shirts?