Children’s
clothing is big business. According to a report recently published by analysts
Euromonitor, the growth of the children’s wear market here in the UK overtook
that of both menswear and womenswear last year and it is set to grow by a
further 13% in the next five years to around £6 billion.
Experts
say that parents are both making more frequent purchases of ‘on-trend’ high
street fashion items and investing in higher-end designer brands, drawn to
ranges from the fashion designer brands as well as sport brands for their
children.
It’s
surprising then, that the cost of school uniform is still regularly reported to
be a concern for parents who then purchase the top end items for their children
to wear out of school.
Research
carried out by Oxford Brookes University last year showed that, compared to
everyday clothing items, good quality school uniform actually constitutes
excellent value. A survey of 2,000
parents, showed that a single garment
to be worn out of school could cost an average of £46.58, that’s £13.10 more
than the average cost of a full primary school uniform which came in at £33.48,
excluding PE kit.
Part of the problem, in our view, is that expectations of what
uniform should cost has been driven by the pricing in supermarkets, who often
supply uniform during back to school time at reduced prices as a promotional
tool to get customers through the door. These super-markets often then move
onto the next promotion (usually Halloween) while the traditional suppliers to
schools offer the stock all year around and cover all the sizes so that every
child is suitably clothed.
Another key factor is buying habits. Because of the seasonal
nature of the school year, many parents buy all their children’s uniform in one
go, often at the last minute, which can make it feel like a large purchase.
This usually only happens at the start of a child’s school life and again at
year 7 when children start senior school, the rest of the time it is usually
replacement items and of course the quality and durability of the garments is then
very important.
Whilst Schoolwear suppliers and schools are very mindful about
cost, we think that parents should be thinking differently about uniform – both
in terms of what they are prepared to pay for it and the way they purchase it.
After all, these are the clothes our children wear most of the
time – nearly 2,000 hours a year, in fact. Why would we want to invest less in
that than the clothes they wear occasionally in the evenings or at weekends?
David Burgess, Chairman of the Schoolwear Association
