The chief executive of Gap sent a personal letter this week replying to a 5-year-old girl who asked the retailer to carry less gendered children’s attire.
Alice Jacobs, 5, is “a girl who likes boy stuff,” refuses to wear dresses “and “doesn’t mind being confused for a boy,” wrote her mom, Beth, in a Washington Post op-ed published in early March. Instead of ribbons and curls, she’s into dinosaurs, planets, bugs and reptiles.
The piece included a letter dictated by Alice, where she complimented Gap’s “really cool” boys’ shirts. “Can you make some cool girls’ shirts please?” the tomboy said. “Or, can you make a ‘no boys or girls’ section?”
Alice’s entreaty was picked up by other national media, and it eventually ended up on the desk of Gap’s top executive, Jeff Kirwan. “You are right, I think we can do a better job offering even more choices that appeal to everyone,” Kirwan wrote to Alice, also enclosing some t-shirts for her. “I’ve talked with our designers and we’re going to work on even more fun stuff that I think you’ll like.”
Kirwan also noted that some of its existing t-shirts for girls include firetrucks, dinosaurs, sharks, footballs and superheroes.
Teen Vogue—which has increasingly made gender identity a priority in its coverage-—reported that Gap is creating a gender-neutral clothing line. By deadline, Gap neither confirmed nor denied that claim.
The magazine also noted that a handful of other brands have changed their children’s offerings to meet culture’s increasingly bendable ideas about gender; Target and Land’s End already include “more inclusive options in their kids’ section.”
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