Necessity is the mother of invention, and this mom saw a need. Sharon Choksi, a co founder of the clothing brand Girls Will Be, first got the idea to launch a line of comfortable girls’ clothes when she and her sister, Laura Burns, were having trouble shopping for their young daughters.
“We ended up shopping on the boys’ side of the stores a lot because nothing in the girls’ section spoke to her,” Sharon Choksi said of shopping for her daughter.
“My daughter Maya was just 3 or 4 when she started having strong opinions about what she wore,” Choksi told TODAY Style. “She had no interest in pink or sparkles or dresses. She liked to read about sharks and climb trees and do science experiments. So we ended up shopping on the boys’ side of the stores a lot because nothing in the girls’ section spoke to her. And she would ask me, ‘Mommy, why do the boys get all the cool stuff?’”
Choksi became frustrated that season after season, there just didn’t seem to be any options for her daughter’s tastes that didn’t follow gender stereotypes, and her sister shared similar issues. As a mom to twins, a boy and girl, Burns saw a big difference in gendered clothing in everything from size to design — even though her two children were virtually the same height and weight.
The sisters decided to work together to come up with a line of clothing that would offer an alternative to the short shorts, skinny fits and frilly designs that often crowded the aisles of the girls’ section. They also brought on their brother, David Burns, an architect with an eye for design, to help with graphics. Choksi, who has a business background, said that she and her siblings had complementary skill sets that helped get the company off the ground.
“As a mom, it’s always been fit that stood out to me,” Choksi said of how the siblings began to brainstorm about the line. “I didn’t want to just print designs onto existing blank T shirts. Girls’ shirts are very fitted and their shorts are very short, and there are often pockets that are unusable. Kids need to be active, and they need clothes that move with them.”
In their extensive research prior to launch, Choksi said girls’ shirts were often 1 to 3 inches thinner than boys’ with shorter cap sleeves. And shorts for girls are almost one third the length of common boys’ shorts.
After many brainstorms — often involving their daughters, Maya and Grace — they came up with an idea for an “in the middle” fit that would allow girls to be active without wearing boxy or oversized styles. Additionally, they came up with strong, empowering phrases for the graphic T shirts, like, “Be Awesome,” “I Will Be Me,” and “Bold, Daring, Fearless, So Many Things.”
“Clothing is one of the biggest ways that kids can express themselves. Think about how much thought we put into our first day of school outfits!” Choksi said. “If you tell girls they’re only allowed to be interested in some things and not others, you’re limiting what they think they can do, be it science or math or otherwise. Are you going to wear a shirt with science on it or cupcakes? Choices are important.”
The company launched in 2013, plus size shapewear with a Kickstarter campaign in early 2014 for their trademark “not so short” shorts. It finished as the No. 1 most funded childrenswear project in Kickstarter history at the time, and the “not so short” shorts remain one of the company’s most popular items.
Kommentek
Kommenteléshez kérlek, jelentkezz be: