The Children’s Autumn Style Edit: Let Kids Dress Like Kids

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Okay parents, carers and anyone who has ever attempted to convince a small child that sandals are perhaps not the ideal choice for a freezing October morning…

Welcome.

It’s Day Eleven of Shocktober: Bring Your Beauty Back to Life, and we’ve reached the Children’s Autumn Style Edit.

My philosophy for children’s autumn fashion is pretty straightforward:

Let kids dress like kids.

Colour.

Characters.

Comfy clothes.

Pockets for inexplicable treasures.

And something capable of surviving a puddle.

Preferably all at once.

Their Outfit Doesn’t Need to Match

If their favourite dinosaur jumper clashes spectacularly with their rainbow wellies, congratulations.

They have personal style.

Children don’t necessarily care whether mustard yellow is trending this autumn.

They care that there’s a dinosaur on their jumper.

Or a unicorn.

Or a superhero.

Or a sparkly cat wearing sunglasses.

Frankly, I think they’ve got the right idea.

There will be plenty of time later in life for worrying about whether something coordinates.

Childhood fashion should still have room for a little chaos.

Autumn Is Made for Colour

I’m certainly not going to tell adults they have to spend autumn dressed in beige, so I’m definitely not doing it to children.

Bring on the colour.

Bright coats on grey mornings.

Colourful jumpers.

Fun hats.

Patterned tights.

Rainbow wellies.

The favourite hoodie they would happily wear seven days a week if somebody let them.

Autumn outside might be brown, orange and grey.

Their wardrobe doesn’t have to be.

But Please Make It Practical

Of course, there’s another person involved in children’s fashion.

The grown-up doing the laundry.

So while I’m fully supporting dinosaur-and-rainbow chaos, children’s autumn clothes also need to survive actual childhood.

We’re talking:

Puddles.

Playgrounds.

Paint.

Snacks.

Mud.

And mysterious substances nobody can quite identify.

This is not the moment for an outfit that requires everybody to panic whenever the child approaches grass.

Let them play.

Layers Are Your Friend

Autumn weather can also make absolutely no sense.

Cold in the morning.

Warm by lunchtime.

Raining ten minutes later.

Sunny immediately afterwards.

So layers make life considerably easier.

T-shirts under jumpers.

Hoodies.

Cardigans.

Lightweight jackets.

Coats when the weather really turns.

Things that can be added and removed as the day changes.

The cutest outfit in the world isn’t much use if the child wearing it is freezing or overheating.

Let Them Have an Opinion

Children develop preferences surprisingly early.

Favourite colours.

Favourite characters.

Clothes they love.

Clothes they absolutely will not wear despite you being unable to identify anything remotely wrong with them.

Where possible, I think there’s something lovely about letting them have a say.

Give them choices.

Let them pick between two jumpers.

Let them choose the hat.

Let them wear the ridiculous socks.

Clothes are one of the earliest ways we get to experiment with expressing ourselves.

That doesn’t have to start when we become adults.

The Children’s Autumn Edit

So my children’s autumn wardrobe isn’t about creating perfectly coordinated miniature fashion influencers.

It’s about clothes that are:

Comfortable enough to play in.

Warm enough for autumn.

Practical enough for real life.

And, most importantly…

Fun enough to be a kid in.

If the rainbow wellies clash with the dinosaur jumper?

Leave them to it.

They might know more about personal style than the rest of us.

Love, Hayls x