Children’s clothing department at Hema to become gender-neutral

By

Shomara Roosblad

Published
Sep 20, 2017

Dutch department store Hema is introducing gender-neutral children’s clothing. From the end of 2017 the labels “girl” and “boy” will be removed at the children’s clothing department, de Volkskrant reports.

Hema will be the first retailer in the Netherlands to offer gender-neutral children’s clothing. In the last few years Hema has received numerous requests from its customers to put gender-neutral clothes on the market. In 2015, a ten-year-old girl requested via Facebook for the department store to put “tougher” underwear on the market, as she wasn’t interested in pink underwear any longer. According to Trevor Perren, Hema's purchasing director for clothing, the department store is seeing a growing need in particular with regard to girls clothing. However, customers will still see pink dresses at Hema, he told de Volkskrant.

In addition to selling gender-neutral clothes, Hema will also remove the distinction between boys and girls divisions, affecting the categories of toys, bedroom supplies and personal care products. With this move, Hema follows in the footsteps of another British department store John Lewis, who launched a gender-neutral children’s clothing collection in early September.

Hema has over 700 stores in seven European countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France. The department stores offers 32,000 products and services.