Louise writes:
I really like buying nice clothes for my kids. That might be an obvious thing to say but I actually think I have a bit of an addiction. It’s rather odd as I don’t buy many for myself and am not into labels/fashion at all. When it comes to the kids’ clothes, it’s not that I care about the label, about them wearing designer clothes, or anything like that – I hate clothes with the brand splashed across the front like a walking advert. I just like good quality clothes that are a bit different. Clothes that don’t make them look like super-trendy mini-adults, and don’t fall into the ‘princess for a girl, tractor for a boy’ pattern that a lot of kids’ clothes do.
Sweetpea does not disappoint – it’s like a dream come true with a really wide selection of gorgeous brands, many I’d heard of, some I hadn’t. Now I’m buying for three kids, I ordered things for all three of them (though to be honest the baby’s wardrobe is already looking rather full!). For the baby I bought a few things from the lovely Beau Loves label – I discovered this brand recently and love them – really simple but lovely items with quirky designs such as the superhero mask. The clothes are thick and feel really well made and I can’t wait to see the baby in them.
My daughter is easy to buy for. She loves dresses. All of them. She likes to choose what she wears herself and I have to say she has good taste, though a little too much of a preference for pink for my liking. Sweetpea has a really wide range of dresses – from the vintage charm of Lille Barn and Aya Naya to the bold colours of Milibe and Nice Things Mini, as well as knitwear, t-shirts etc. too. Iris was mainly interested in the dresses though and was totally thrilled with her items. She especially liked that they were packaged in a Sweetpea cloth bag so she got to take them out herself, one by one and gasp at how beautiful they all were. She’s worn most of them since and has received a lot of compliments for them all. Once again the quality is fantastic and I can tell these are going to last.
And lastly, Felix. I find him quite hard to buy for at the moment as he mainly wants to wear clothes with computer game characters on them and unfortunately most of the High Street shops have so many of these it’s rather hard to avoid. I used to buy him a lot of Scandinavian brands with bright patterns but at five (and the all important half), he’s growing out of these a bit. Sweetpea offers a really nice range of boys’ clothes that are a bit more grown up but not TOO grown up, and not limited to the blues and browns you seem to see in many shops. I got him a couple of gorgeous jumpers from FUB which are so soft he doesn’t complaint about them being itchy at all (a first), and his absolute favourite is a ‘6’ t-shirt from Milibe. I was thinking I would give this to him on his sixth birthday but he saw it and pleaded to wear it. It’s a slim fit and long, which is great as he’s quite long-bodied, and it really looks great.
Sweetpea is a really gorgeous online shop with a great range of baby and children clothes. The prices are higher than a typical high street shop but you get a lot more for that money. Plus, if you just can’t stretch to spending those extra pounds, it has a really great sale section with some VERY big discounts!
Check out the Sweetpea website for their full range
