Really, Pottery Barn Kids? Purple-and-teal (excuse me, "turquoise-and-plum") backpacks are only for girls and gray-and-charcoal ones are only for boys?
Which, apparently, you can tell if you want a gray-and-charcoal one with a dolphin, a flower, a cat, a mermaid, a butterfly, an owl, a heart, or a fairy … because, you can't. And if you want a turquoise-and-plum one with a dragon, football helmet, lightning bolt, football, rocket, bulldozer, or skate board … you can't, either.
The problem appears to be that the patches aren't something applied on-the-fly, but the inventory is pre-set. So some of the color combos they have (see below) don't have a full choice of patches because, presumably, those patch-color combos are already sold out.
The idea that you're choosing a patch for given backpack (which PBK implies in its message back to the complaining mother) is almost certainly not correct. PBK has bought X patch-color combos, and once they are gone they are gone.
So I can understand their wanting to be vaguely smart about it and play the odds that most girls aren't going to want to have a bulldozer on their pink-and-white backpack, or most boys won't choose a hibiscus flower for their red-and-navy backpack, or that a girl who wants a backpack will be more likely to go for (or have bought for her) traditional "girl" colors, and ditto for boys.
But it's still a playing of the odds that's going to torque off someone, and lead to lost sales. And it plays into the idea that some colors and imagery are "naturally" for boys or for girls. Which is even more off-putting.
So, note for the record: the green-and-blue backpacks are apparently also just for boys. As are the green-and-white ones. And the gray-and-orange ones. And the gray-and-white ones. And the red-and-blue ones, and the white-and-blue ones and the all-blue ones and the red-and-white ones, and the all-red ones. But the girls can get the turquoise-and-white, all-turquoie, pink-and-blue, all-pink, or the "Aegean blue"-and-pink ones.
Sounds like a great reason to buy kid stuff somewhere else.
(h/t +Les Jenkins)
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