Uncolour your world

How real estate colours affected children’s fashion

Do you ever sense we inhabit a realm akin to a dystopian fiction novel or film where our surroundings are dominated by a palette of greys, whites, beiges, and greiges — colours so bland and inoffensive they render our living spaces monotonous and subdued?

Purchasing flooring, bedding, furniture, fashion, and vehicles in vibrant colours has become increasingly impossible. Prior to the 1990s, consumers enjoyed a wide array of colour choices for these items. However, the emergence of the “sad beige” trend has significantly subdued society’s colour preferences. This trend has even influenced the way babies are dressed, with some parents opting for gender-neutral colours in their attire, nursery designs, and toy selections.

Some say this boring colour trend started around 1984 as people were trying to survive the recession. Investors started buying inexpensive, sometimes dilapidated, or outdated homes, painting them neutral colours, providing a refresh and then “flipping” the home for profit.

Peter Witt is the broker of record at Fenelon Falls Real Estate. His first dealing with flippers was 40 years ago. He had clients that had one set of neutral furniture and would buy a house needing updating. He notes, they would live in the house, which they stripped of individuality and colour. The flip would take about a year. He said the home was bankable as, “it looked like a show home.” Eventually, it was so profitable that the couple flipped homes for a living. He says, as a flipper, if you “got into bright colours,” you could turn away a lot of potential buyers.

Industry pushes for constant change to create a demand for many colours and for consumers to “keep up with the Joneses.” Despite this, people haven’t been biting, instead, choosing to embrace all things “greige.”

How many times have you lost your vehicle in a parking lot due to drab rows upon rows of grey, taupe, white and black autos? Unless you are buying a luxury vehicle, your choice of colour is usually limited to “greyscale” shades with the most popular being, white, black and grey, according to iSeeCars for 2023.

Vehicles aren’t the only product where consumers are paying more for colour. Large appliances and smaller items such as stand mixers are priced differently for special colours. They are often rotated out making them seem more valuable.

While trends in fashion, toys and home decor come and go, the beige baby aesthetic is undeniable. A quick search on TikTok shows a plethora of videos on how to paint Little Tykes or Fisher Price plastic toys in muted tones. The movement swaps traditional primary colours and pastels with shades such as cream, bone and sand.

How did the house flipping colour trend gradually influence babies and toddlers even after four decades? Some parents say neutral coloured clothing frees children from social expectations based on sex. Others express neutral colours are a balm in the midst of chaos in our busy, overstimulated world. For parents whose homes, decor and fashion are dictated by the neutral tones, some posit dressing their babies the same way is an extension of their good taste.

For a Lindsay mother of two, Nicole McLaughlin-Norris, regular colourful children’s clothing doesn’t align with her morals. She finds girl’s clothing sexualized.

“The shorts are tighter and shorter. And they don’t offer a ton of coverage and the fabric is not as durable.” She adds gender neutral colour and styled clothes tend to be well-made and offer generous sizing as well. “They’re kind of like a one size fits all. It just makes the playing field even.”

The flip side, she says, is the boys clothing is masculine with dinosaur and construction themes and mud-coloured and grey. She questions the absence of boys’ clothing adorned with floral patterns or girls’ attire showcasing themes like bugs, construction, or heavy equipment. “We’re kind of stuck in the past of stereotypical boy and girl roles.”

With a three-year-old daughter and a seven-month son, McLaughlin-Norris and her husband Matt, did not find out the sex of the children before birth as they felt they would be inundated with stereotypical baby clothing.

When buying clothes for her toddler daughter, the outdoor education program officer, says she does not want to be part of fast fashion culture, with an eye to purchases that can be passed onto her son —noting it’s expensive. “I don’t need to be buying brand new clothes for kids every year.”

McLaughlin-Norris says she does not want to hurt people’s feelings, noting it is often Boomers who eschew the beige trend and gift stereotypical, colourful, gendered clothing. “I’m pretty vocal about how I want my children to dress.”

She says she is shocked as, “we’re still stuck in this very narrow view of how a little boy should act and how a little girl should act. And that’s reflected in their clothing,” noting when her children are old enough, “they get to make their own choices.”

Colleen Trask is a supervisor at children’s clothing store Carter’s, in Lindsay. She has worked at the store for five years and says the inventory of neutral coloured baby and tots clothing has increased every year.

“I’ve noticed a trend.” Trask says the neutral colours makes it easier for people to buy clothing, noting more couples are choosing not to know the sex of their unborn child beforehand.

As for the rest of the sad beige trend, colour seems to be making a reappearance with Benjamin Moore choosing brighter colours of the year with 2022 showcasing a shade of green, in 2023 a coral-tinged pink and this year a blue-violet mix.

Regarding the 40-year-old trend of colourless home flipping, it seems to be on the decline. Evan Connolly, a realtor at Birdhouse Realty in Lindsay, notes that house flipping is currently not a popular trend. With starter homes in Kawartha Lakes and the Peterborough region priced at more than $500,000, it is generally no longer considered a viable means of making money.

Connolly explains that some investors opt to purchase pre-built homes directly from a builder, anticipating that the property will appreciate in value during the one or two years it takes for completion, enabling them to sell it without the need for any renovations or painting.

His advice for choosing colours with an eye to resale someday, is to choose what you like, noting some buyers like colour and others prefer neutral so they can leave it, or paint it whatever colour they want.

“I don’t think there’s a negative in either case.”

The gender-neutral colours and styles for babies and tots are not likely to go away anytime soon. Trask says clothing stores, “are doing more of integrating the lines so that it’s not clear cut (about) what’s boys and what’s girls.”