Last week John Lewis became the first UK retailer to abandon gender categories on their own-brand children’s clothing. Their head of children’s wear explained the decision, stating ““We do not want to reinforce gender stereotypes…and instead want to provide greater choice and variety to our customers.” Hoorah to that!

A quick Google search for ‘boys dresses’ to find a suitable picture for this post resulted only in what you see above. Something out of Tudor times. Or from another continent. John Lewis are the first UK clothing chain to acknowledge that perhaps the enforced labelling of what a boy or girl ‘should’ wear is similarly archaic and culturally constrained. Rather than re-designing their clothing range, they have simply ditched the labels and abandoned the separate sections characteristic of most clothes stores.

But is this ‘political correctness’ gone mad? One MP has criticised the decision saying “Boys and girls labels and signs are informative. I think removing them could be very confusing for the consumer… I cannot see many customers buying a dress for their six-year-old boy.” He is, perhaps, missing the point. Which is exactly that we need to move away from this mentality that a certain type of clothing is meant for one sex or the other.

We should also give parents some credit. Moving the pasta next to the jam in a supermarket doesn’t send your average adult into turmoil because they wouldn’t expect those two things to be together. They might need to ask the first time. But then they’ll get it. Perhaps no boy really wants to wear a skirt. But is that because none of the other boys are doing it yet? Or because mum or dad walks straight past the ‘girls’ section in the store? Maybe little girls do want to wear pink flowery dresses, and that’s fine.They’re still on the shelves. It’s just now, they will be on the shelf next to the purple dinosaur top or the pink star shorts. And parents won’t be dictated to as to which child they’re designed for.