School Coats and your tween boy featuring the new Barbour.

Charlie has a perfectly good, excellent condition M&S parka from his last winter at Primary School which still fits him fine.  A couple of weeks ago when the weather got quite cold, I asked if he wanted to wear his coat and I was met with a resounding "No". "Is anybody else wearing coats over their blazers yet?" I enquired. "No" came the answer.

Charlie then mentioned that a couple of his friends at secondary school have Barbour Jackets. OH and I discussed and decided the reluctance to wear a hooded parka, no matter how cold, may well be an age thing as tween boys and girls begin to take an interest in their clothes and appearance, and peer pressure to wear the same as your friends begins to get bigger than ever and having three older daughters, I know this too well!

 

So a Barbour was bought and I have to tell you, still hasn't been worn for school except on a non school uniform day a few weeks back

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We showed Charlie the styles available online and he opted for the one with the distressed union jack lining which of course he would as it was more expensive, but to be fair it was our favourite too, although we were a bit surprised at first and thought it looked as though someone had wiped over a dirty kitchen floor with the lining! Any of the website's this coat was for sale on, made no mention of the lining, although some mentioned "distressed" but that was it. Charlie liked so we kept it.

 

Wednesday it was raining cats and dogs as the boy was due to get off the school bus. I text him asking if he would like me to walk up to the bus stop with a coat, I got a resounding "naah" response.  When he got home soaking wet (and we only live about 3 minutes walk from the stop), I made a deal with him that when it is either raining, sleeting or snowing when he leaves in the morning, he must wear his old parka because it has a hood and as from Monday, he must wear his new coat. No question.

Union Jack lined Barbour jacket from John Lewis here.

Is your 11/12 year old boy reluctant to wear a coat to school?

Back to school haircut and todays outfit.

Charlie keeps telling me and everybody else off for saying "back to school" and corrects us by saying "going to new school".  According to him it is not the same thing at all!

Anyway I digress.  It was off to the salon today for his "starting new school" haircut and it got me thinking about boys and their hair styles and I wondered what you other mums think about the subject, specifically little boys with long hair.  Now I have no problem with teenage boys having long hair even though it often makes them look like a character off of the "Kevin and Perry" set, but they are old enough to make their own choices and hair style is often as much a fashion thing as the latest footwear or school bag, but when it comes to babies, toddlers and young boys under about the age of 10 who have shoulder length hair I often wonder why parents are happy for their son to resemble a girl? 

Charlie had his first haircut at 9 months old because his hair was getting so long (no he wasn't born with loads but it grows really quickly) I was beginning to worry people would start saying ow pretty "she was" every time they looked in the Pram!  Another thing that crosses my mind is, do these parents wish they had a daughter?

I can't tell you how many boys at Charlie's primary school had long hair and to be honest, it always looks scruffy. Girls with long hair go to school with plaits, pony tails or buns to keep them looking tidy and boys, well they just wear their hair down, eagerly awaiting the next infestation of nits! 

A school cap was an important part of Charlie's old school uniform but show me a boy with long hair who's cap either sat on his head correctly or who looked like a smart young man representing his school and I will eat his now redundant headgear!

Long hair on boys often seems to be the pre-requiste of a certain type of mum/family, its hard to put my finger on, but I know the kind of mum I mean and I don't want to say "trendy" as I certainly consider myself to be a trendy mum, but the sort of mum with model girl looks but earth mother tendencies, a home in the most desirable of area's but one that hasn't seen a hoover for weeks.  The sort of Mum who does finger painting all day with the children and forgets to cook a dinner for her husband when he comes home from the office.  I may have got this all wrong and can only base my finding's on women that I actually know or who I met at the school gate, so would love to know what you think, or if your son has long hair, why?

I remember when we attended the Open Evening for Charlie's new school, we were chaperoned around by a boy with long hair and too long trousers, he looked and walked like he didn't belong in that environment with my husband actually going as far as to say the boy looked "a right drip" but I am sure with a hair cut and a bit of needle and thread he could have looked so much smarter.  Neither of us thought he portrayed the image the school was trying to convey, unyet there doesn't seem to be any policy on haircuts for boys (not that there should be) at any school but go in with the wrong colour shoes or without your blazer and you'd be given detention for sure!

Charlie complete with his new haircut wearing Ralph Lauren t-shirt, Abercrombie and Fitch chino's and his second pair of Nike Blazers.

Beside the Seaside.

Living by the seaside means we rarely go anywhere else when we want to relax on the beach, but Tuesday saw us make an exception as we travelled to Whitstable for the day.  It was nice and sunny, occasionally overcast but still warm, which gave us the opportunity to get some wear out of the summer clothes that won't fit Charlie next year. He wore his Tommy Hilfiger check shirt, Ralph Lauren navy chino shorts, and his old Nike Hi-Top Trainers (I was taking any chances of his 2 new pairs of Nike Blazers getting ruined).

Have you managed to keep the kids in their summer clothes during the holidays?

Snapback.

It was whilst my youngest daughter was on holiday in Ibiza a few ago and text me from the Professor Green gig at Ibiza Rocks saying "Millie Macintosh is here and she is wearing a Snapback" that I heard about them for the first time. "What is a Snap Back?" I enquired, "Google it" came her firm and final reply, she obviously couldn't be arsed to explain it.  So I did.

A "Snap Back" is basically a baseball cap with a very flat and sort of half moon shaped peak as opposed to ones that are rather curved and have been around for a while.  As soon as I saw one I knew I had seen them on countless celebrities, rappers and athletes, but I just wasn't up to speed on the "snap back" jargon.  I had also seen two boys of a similar age wearing them on holiday in Marbella last week, looking very "cool" I might add.

So to cover his bad hair days (yes he has many and they start about 2 weeks after his last hair cut as it grow's so quickly and consists of a double crown, widow's peak and 2 cow's licks - thank christ he is not a girl) we bought one from JD Sport's website which arrived today so we had a quick try on in the garden (this would not normally be worn with his "play" clothes).

At £25 they are not cheap but they are mens as I couldn't seem to find any for Tweens but the S/M size fits fine and is fully adjustable.

There are of course worn by girls too, check out this picture of a real little cutie rocking her Snap Back!

via flutteronby.com

Has your tween been asking for one? Did you know what a Snap Back was?

Friday Snapshots - New Blazers, Hoody and a Haircut!

No sooner had we caught up with the latest fashionable footwear trend for kids, tween's and teens, a new footwear craze is sweeping the younger nation, Blazers.  Nike Blazers are the most sought after hi-top trainer trend and have even been seen on on Mark Wright (ex Towie) in Marbella.

A few of Charlie's friends have got them, my 19 year old daughter wants them and a few of her friends have them already, both male and female and paid the astronomical £69.99, but a bit of savvy shopping will see you buying from the "Junior" section (if you tween is a size 5 or smaller) for a far more reasonable  £42.  The only downside for us was that we ordered them from JD Sports and then got an email to say part of our order wasn't coming and yes you guessed it, it was the Blazers that had gone out of stock.  So annoying, why can't stock levels and websites be kept up to date?  Other online retailers manage to do it properly and sadly this has put me right off of using JD in future. We then went ahead and ordered from Nike direct. I was more annoyed that we had added more items to our JD order just to get free delivery then ended up paying Nike postage rates, but the bonus was that we got them so much cheaper than we initially thought we would.

Charlie put them on as soon as they arrived and didn't take them off all day even though he was just having a lazy day indoors (as you can see) and they didn't really match his River Island shorts!

The new hoody from Criminal Damage also arrived the same day, so another quick try on was called for.  Glad we got this with the Olympic weekend discount code, which made it a reasonably priced purchase.  The only thing I was a bit unsure about was the white shoe lace hanging longer one side than the other, but it is stitched down so can't be adjusted. Weird.

Holiday Haircut yesterday. I was in another chair getting my colour done and when the Stylist had finished with Charlie she told me she had asked him if he wanted it to look like any of the boys on "The Only Way is Essex" to which Charlie responded, "no thanks I hate all of them". Ha Ha.

Be back soon!

CRIMINAL DAMAGE - £10 and an extra 15% OFF!

Charlie is beginning to outgrow the Ralph Lauren hoodie he has had for almost two years (cost per wear, yes it was worth it!) so the search is on to buy him a new one.  The RL website did (did) have them on sale, in white and I love him in white tops, but they are sadly now all sold out.

Meanwhile I have it on good authority that Hoodie's with "shoe laces" are the latest thing, so the search was on for something not as expensive as a full price Ralph Lauren new season offering.

I turned first to Boys Base, a shop we often frequent on trips to Bluewater, and found a Criminal Damage hoodie that fitted the bill perfectly at £32.  OH then went on to M&M Direct where he found the same thing for adults for £19.99 so he felt like we were being robbed (says he who has recently bought himself virtually all of the Mr Porter sale stock in his size - ahem.

I wondered if Criminal Damage had their own website and yes they did.  The hoodie was £31.99, so were weren't being robbed.  Upon entering the website a pop up box appeared asking you to fill in your details to get £10 off of your first order, I filled this out in a flash!  Then upon checking out, I got an extra 15% off for the Olympics!  So not only did we get James Bond and David Beckham to feast the eye on, we got extra discount on our online shopping, result! No wonder I love the Olympics!

I bought the sky blue, such a lovely colour but it also comes in Spruce, Grey and Burgundy.

£31.99 - £10 with code, plus extra 15% off making it a very attractive £18.69!

www.criminaldamage.co.uk

Lately I've been wearing......

For the end of term Year 6 Leavers do last week Charlie wore polo shirt by Ralph Lauren, Chino's by Abercrombie and White Vans. 

Fast forward to the summer holidays where he just chucks anything on for a day indoors or in the garden and I need a serious word about colour co-ordination.....

If the sunglasses were red, he would have resembled a traffic light! Wearing top from River Island Kids, Tommy Hilfiger shorts.

For a day at the beach it was the new River Island kids hat and old M&S swimshorts.

Hope your Tweens are enjoying the sunshine!