“When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, something really shifted in my head and I was really conscious of clothing. I went to the shops to look at the clothes. I was appalled.”

Ashayla Dawn is a mother of two, her baby daughter is in her pram as I sit opposite them stirring the black coffee she ordered me. The waitress comes over and asks to see the baby. They exchange niceties for a while, “We’re locals at this cafe.” she tells me. For Dawn, being a mother is something she can handle. But, being a mother navigating little girl’s clothing for the first time is a frightening pill to swallow.

In a world of too-small shorts and too-cropped shirts, mothers are beginning to draw the line with little girl’s fashion and its impracticalities.

“When I had my son, there’s not a huge variety in boys’ clothes. Its blues, its greens, its greys. I had fun dressing him and trying out those different styles, and then when I got to the girls clothes all of a sudden the shorts are a lot shorter,”

“The skirts are tiny, the nappies are hanging out, there’s spaghetti straps, crop tops, and it’s just not okay. This isn’t sun smart,” she says, questioning why outfits for little girls replicate clothes designed to showcase women’s breasts.

Australian studies show that toddler clothing for girls is likely to cater to adult physical characteristics, such as cropped tops to expose toddlers waists.

“I think about how rough and tumble my toddler is and how he runs, climbs, and jumps. These girl clothes are just not appropriate for that lifestyle and the movement that a child needs to do,” she says.

Her face cringes in discomfort as thinks about the appliques on girl’s clothing, and says it’s something she would never put her daughter in.

“Even the appliques, you don’t really see boys’ clothes with sequins and other things on there.” She describes girls clothes as commonly featuring sequins, little pictures and textured sections that tempt other children to touch them.

“Children this little, they can’t consent. They can’t. They don’t know to just walk up and ask someone, can I touch your shirt? They just go up and touch it.” she says.

Dawn says slogans on children’s t-shirts are a whole other avenue. In an aim to investigate myself, I walk down the children’s clothing aisle at Kmart. I see girl’s t-shirts splashed with “cutie pie”, “princess” and “tutti fruity” in arrays of pinks and purples. The boy’s aisle is moody and muted, “surfs up”, “little adventurer” and “wild ride” on the cotton canvases in front of me.”

The slogans on boys and girls shirts are different. Photo: Imogen Bell.

“The slogans on boys clothes will have, off on an adventure or something like that, and the girls will have sweetie cutie pie smile. A big part of a mum’s job is to protect the child. If you jump online, you just look up what mums talk about, like these are our boundaries when a baby’s born. My job is to protect her and yet you want to put her in clothes that everyone just wants to come up and touch and rub their fingers all over,” she says.

President of the Curtin Fashion Society, Rahmah Chugtai says companies are simply scaling down adult patterns, instead of designing clothing from scratch.

“I really do think some of these fashion trends encourage girls to dress older. There are companies making bodycon dresses and off-the-shoulder tube tops for toddlers, and this all mimics adult clothing that serves literally no functional purpose to a child.

“It’s easier for fast fashion companies to just downsize adult clothing instead of making new patterns for kids that would actually be functional,” she says.

The Australian kids apparel market was valued at $13.28 billion in 2025, it shows an increased demand by parents for long-lasting clothing for their growing children.

Chugtai says many children’s clothing items today prioritise appearance over comfort and social media trends have begun to impact children’s fashion.

“There’s a social media factor, parents purchase clothing thinking about how it will look when they post it on Instagram or Facebook, rather than how it would perform in a playground.

“I think with the way micro trends emerge, it puts this pressure on parents to view children’s wardrobes as disposable fashion rather than having a seasonal wardrobe,” she says.

Amelia Strachan sighs heavily over the phone. I can’t see her face but her voice paints her expression. “The girls may have a bigger range, but some of the stuff you’re not going to buy because it’s not practical,” she says.

The mother of three has had negative thoughts about girl’s clothing for a while now. Having a boy first, and then her two daughters opened her eyes to various issues. She now finds herself shopping for practicality rather than trendy styles.

“I feel like a lot of the clothes are very short or nakedish. With sun exposure, you don’t want them too exposed in the sun.

She described clothes for girls as “very crop toppy” and difficult to fit over nappies because the shorts are so short.

Her request to designers would be to provide children with the comfort they need, rather than clothing that immobilises them. She also flagged concern about modesty.

“Obviously there’s not so nice people out there. So I try to find things that are not too short or exposing, because you don’t want them to be exposed to a bad situation. I feel like, just cover up your child.

“When people design clothes for children, just let children be children. They don’t have to have other agendas or things behind the clothing. I don’t think the issue will go away, it’s just what we can do to make the most of it and find things that work.”

Dawn glances at her pram as we talk, her blue eyes shifting to the drink in front of her.

“My husband is Arab, he’s an immigrant and he’s quite prominent in his community. So, we have random community members who want to help and show their respect which is lovely. But, a lot of the time that comes in the form of giving clothes.”

“Then, I have to sit there and open these clothes that honestly sometimes just make me physically ill and I have to just be thankful and happy,” she says.

Clothing examples Ashayla brought to show me. Photo: Imogen Bell

She tells me about the pressures she feels raising a young girl to today’s societal standards. Her white blonde hair moves in the wind as she thinks about her words.

“There is a pressure from people to make sure she looks feminine. I was telling a lot of people that I’ve still got all of my son’s clothes and there was a lot of judgement from people around me. But what’s wrong with putting her in a blue onesie with tigers on it?”

Dawn is troubled by the pressure to make her daughter conformity to the norms of femininity.

Chugtai agrees that religious context can make clothing choices more problematic than they should be. She recounts how when she was a young girl she was overseas in a Muslim context and not allowed to wear shorts.

“I was wearing fully long sleeves and long pants. When we moved here, it was a bit of a cultural shock,”

“I couldn’t find anything to wear as a kid because everything was so short and revealing, there was really nothing in the market for me,” she says.

Raising a Muslim daughter, Dawn is considers how her husband’s culture will effect her baby.

“My husband is dark, so my little girl is dark. That is going to have its own specific problems and impressions about how she should and shouldn’t dress, given that there’s extra policing about how women dress there.

“Being a woman is one thing, being a brown woman in Australia is another thing. They are raised to know their value, and their value is incredibly important, which is wonderful. But, it comes with that side piece of ‘you have to be pretty’,” she says.

Dawn says the stereotypes we are taught from a young age through physical items like clothing can impact the way women see themselves.

“There’s so many comments about chunky babies, skinny babies. She’s a bit chunkier, so I get told all the time that she’s healthy and my son isn’t. So, it’s not even just the clothes. It’s everything we put onto these children that have no idea what’s happening.

“I’ve become very conscious about the way I speak about myself. I don’t want her to look at herself and go, I’m too chubby, I’m too skinny. Add the clothes on top of it and it’s a battle from all these different points. I don’t really know how to combat it or get in there, other than putting comfort over appearance,” she says.

“She’s a baby, she needs to roll, she needs to crawl, she needs to be warm, she needs to be cool. I focus on her movement and comfort over anything else. If that means putting her in the blue onesie with the tigers on it instead of the cute little two piece, whatever.

“But in the future, what she chooses to wear and feels beautiful in, that’s her opinion. I don’t care,” she smiles.