SO WHAT DO CHILDREN MAKE OF IT?

Writer Sarah Chalmers took her nine-yearold twins Loulou and Bobby (pictured wearing John Lewis unisex clothes) to the retailer’s Oxford Street store to try the new department. BEFORE I even catch a glimpse of the clothes, I am dragged off the escalator by Loulou, who has spotted a purple handbag in the shape of a unicorn. Her brother asks if they sell cricket bats.

Loulou has always been a girlie girl. Bobby lives for cricket. So I am intrigued to see what they will make of the unisex clothes.

From the off it is clear which pieces were, until last week, deemed ‘boys’ and which ‘girls’, as they are still arranged in distinct groups. Sparkly dresses hang next to fluffy gilets. Across the aisle plaid shirts and navy chinos stare back. In the middle is the section labelled ‘girls and boys’ or ‘boys and girls’. Loulou does seem open to outfits that don’t normally appear in the girls’ section and is taken with a grey top bearing an illustration of the solar system. A few years ago she wouldn’t have gone near anything that wasn’t pink, so perhaps she’s growing out of it.

But I soon realise middle-class mums like me are the target, not my offspring, because very few parents actually take their kids to buy clothes; it is too stressful. When I steer the twins to some jumpers with dinosaurs on they are in total agreement. Both hate them. ‘There’s just nothing cool about dinosaurs,’ says Loulou.

With that we go in search of cricket bats, with a detour to stroke the unicorn bag again. In my house, boys will be boys, girls will be girls and mums won’t be conned by a marketing ploy.