Children's clothing should be cheap — but it doesn't have to look ugly



So you’ve decided that you’re sick of your kids wearing the dumbest clothes imaginable.

You now understand that it’s important for them to wear clothes that encourage some sense of normal aesthetic sensibility. You have disentangled yourself from the pajama-pant slop, neon-Croc ideology of 2025 and want to dress your kids well from this point on.

Do you know how many people sell entire 'lots' of kids' clothes on eBay? It will blow your mind. Five kids' Oxford shirts for 15 bucks.

But you are worried about the cost. You are afraid of them wrecking every shirt you buy. Their grubby fingers at dinner. The stains. The mud outside. The mess. Markers. Paint.

Balling on a budget

“How can I afford to buy them nice clothes if all they are going to do is wreck them?”

This is what stops lots of parents. They like the idea of their kids dressing well, but the practicality of it stands in their way. They give up before they even start because they think it is impossible to do without wasting tons of money replacing perpetually stained shirts that need to remain perfect if they are going to be worn at all.

So is it impossible? Are they right to give up? Do you need a fortune to dress your kids decently?

No, no, and no. But you’ve got to change your mindset first.

Redefining 'nice' clothes

If you are used to dressing your kids in pajama pants, you most likely think that chinos and any shirt with a collar are clothes to be worn only when "dressing up." In your mind, these are not clothes for daily wear. They are for holiday dinners, family reunions, weddings, religious services, and basically anything "formal."

These are the clothes that you tell your kids to be careful with so that they don’t wreck them. You don’t want them playing on the playground in them. You don’t want them playing in the grass in them. You don’t want them spilling something on them.

These are their “nice clothes.” And they have to remain nice. You and your kids are perpetually freaked out about keeping them nice.

You’ve got to change this mindset.

These are no longer their nice clothes. They are no longer the clothes that you freak out about. These are just their clothes. It’s what they wear on a daily basis. Their T-shirts are gone. Their pajama pants are gone. The floor has been raised, and now button-ups and polo shirts are what the kids wear every day.

You can’t police them in hopes that they keep these clothes perfectly clean. They need to live just as naturally in these nicer clothes as they did in their pajama pants before. This means they are going to get stained, ripped, messed up, screwed up, and beat up. Accept that. This is now normal. Make peace.

Bargains galore

Next: the money. I know that’s still bothering you. You might have changed your mindset, but you don’t know how you are going to afford this. “These clothes cost too much; I can’t afford to buy my kids a bunch of button-ups.”

This is where you are wrong. These clothes don’t have to be expensive. You just need to get a little creative.

Don’t buy the polo when it is $14.99. Buy five of them when they are on sale for $3.99. Yes, those deals happen.

Go to Goodwill and thrift stores. You can find so many plain polo shirts at Goodwill for just a few dollars. And because parents think of them as “nice shirts,” they will often be lightly used if not practically new.

Look on eBay. Do you know how many people sell entire “lots” of kids' clothes on eBay? It will blow your mind. Five kids' Oxford shirts for 15 bucks. Three wool sweaters from the '80s in practically perfect condition for $10 plus $4.99 in shipping.

These are nice clothes, but they are not expensive clothes. These are affordable. You just have to plan a little more. Yeah, you aren’t swinging by Target and throwing 10 stupid T-shirts in your cart on the way home, but who cares? That shouldn’t be the standard. All it takes is a little more effort, and you can easily dress your kids well on a budget.

Stains happen

There are tactical hacks that can help. Instead of light khaki chinos, go for navy chinos. You can’t see that big splat of chili on a pair of navy chinos. The grass stains don’t really show up, either. A 5-year-old can play outside in the dusty dirt all afternoon, and navy chinos won’t show any of it.

Buy slightly darker plaids instead of lighter-colored shirts. The white Oxford shirt in unforgiving. The green plaid button-up, on the other hand, is like a pair of navy chinos: a durable, stain-absorbing workhorse. These clothes allow kids to be kids in the best way possible while still dressing well.

Kids don’t need 25 stupid T-shirts. They need seven decent button-ups. They don’t need sweatpants with hideous hamburger designs plastered all over them.

They need simple, cotton, navy chinos. They don’t need bright-orange Crocs. They need washable canvas boat shoes that you bought in the offseason for 75% off. If you want to dress your kids decently, it’s not impossible. You just need a change of mindset and a little creativity.

J.Crew's lucrative new market: Men who want to dress like men



Where did classic clothing go? When did the standards become niche?

All J.Crew had to do was offer the standards. Just bring them back. No frills. No extra synthetic garbage added. Just give us the classics.

When did the basics become so hard to find that you could only get your hands on them if you were brave enough to venture down some dark alley on a cold rainy night? Next to the dumpster, past the broken-down truck, there’s a small window. Don’t tell anyone.

“You got OCBDs? What’s the collar roll like?”

“I’m looking for wide-wale cords. I haven’t seen them in years.”

“What do I owe you?”

This is what it was like. Well, you didn’t really lurk down a dark alley on a rainy night, but you did need to know where to look, and it wasn’t easy. It was off the beaten path. Over the years, it became a Herculean task just to get your hands on a pair of 100% cotton chinos with no stretch added. Is that so much to ask? As company after company moved toward athleisure and synthetic, stretchy slop, the standards became an endangered species.

J.Crew seizes the day

Amidst all this, there was an opportunity waiting for the right company to come along and bring back the classics. The formula would be simple. Offer them straight. Offer them standard. Offer them at some kind of reasonable price. There was a $100 bill sitting on the ground just waiting for someone to pick it up. J.Crew grabbed it.

Before J.Crew decided to seize the day, it was struggling.

Five years ago, the company had strayed far from its original mission. It was lost. Its clothing was unimpressive and uninspiring.

But over the past couple of years, J.Crew has been in the process of rehabilitating its brand and bringing back the classics slowly but surely. It is returning to its roots. It is returning to tradition.

The J.Crew golden era was the mid-'80s through the '90s. There is a fantastic Instagram account — @lostjcrew — that posts photos exclusively from the catalogs released during this glorious era. It’s a perfect aesthetic archive. Take some time and compare the photos on @lostjcrew with the photos in J.Crew’s new advertising campaigns. The connection is clear as day.

Young people running on the beach. The waves crashing on the shore. A cottage, sand, waves, style. The beautifully down-to-earth imagery that characterized the golden era of J.Crew lives again. Simple, classic, American style. The dark ages have been deleted. New J.Crew is old J.Crew.

OCBDs: Against the slim-fit menace

Peruse J.Crew, and you will be pleasantly surprised. It currently offers a giant-fit Oxford shirt. The sizing reminds you of those beautiful roomy-fit Oxford cloth button-downs that were everywhere in the '90s. An oversized yoke that falls off your shoulders. Worn untucked with jeans on a Saturday afternoon. They disappeared one day, and slim fit took over. Grim. Bringing back the full-fit Oxford OTR is a clear rejection of the totalitarian slim-fit menace.

Choice chinos

When it comes to chinos, J.Crew currently offers six different fit options. Skinny, slim, athletic tapered, straight, classic, giant. The classic fit and the giant fit are the interesting offerings. These are the options to keep your eye on. These are the return pieces. These full-cut chinos give us what we have been waiting for: classic-fit chinos with no stretch offered at a reasonable price.

Sweater swagger

The sweater selection is robust. Preppy colors. Simple, beautiful, cashmere crewnecks. Chunky cotton knits. It offers a shocking number of sport coats. It even has a 3 roll 2. Rugby jerseys. 100% cotton polo shirts. Earthy barn jackets and suede penny loafers made by Alden. This is classic. This is standard. This is great. This is the kind of clothing that should be easy to find off the rack.

Is everything perfect at J.Crew? Of course not. You can always find something wrong. It’s easy to be a critic of everything and everyone.

The collar points aren’t long enough. The pants aren’t made in the USA. The rise isn’t high enough on the chinos. Okay, fine. Whatever. Perfection isn’t the point. It’s not going to happen. Forget it. Let it go. It’s about direction. That’s what all life is about. J.Crew is making clear moves in the right direction. It is offering the old classics again. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

It has decided to lean hard into the '90s throwback, and it is working. The styling in the ads is relaxed, nonchalant, and comfortable. The imagery is beautiful and aspirational. Joyful and nostalgic.

Permanent style

In a recent Instagram post titled “Chinos Through the Generations,” J.Crew fully embraces the intergenerational nature of classic style — handed down from father to son. The photos look like they could have been taken 30 years ago. This is all very intentional. The entire J.Crew Instagram account is becoming almost indistinguishable from the @lostjcrew account. Nature is healing.

Who knows how long this trajectory will last? Trends are fickle. Two years, five years, or 20 years. Who knows? However long it lasts, it is a welcome development and an encouraging sign. J.Crew was down for the count for a while. To see a brand come back in such a strong way should give us hope. Other makers who are currently going through their dark ages may too come back again one day. It’s not over till it’s over.

The formula was so simple. So easy. All J.Crew had to do was offer the standards. Just bring them back. No frills. No extra synthetic garbage added. Just give us the classics. The nostalgia. The '90s. That’s what it did. It picked up a $100 bill.