Sunday, December 2nd., 2018
Céline Dion’s new line of gender-neutral kids clothes and creepy ads have Christian groups seriously concerned
“Unless you’re a member of the Addams Family or a satanic cult, why would you dress your infant in this?” EWTN News anchor Raymond Arroyo told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. “It’s bizarre.”...>>
https://youtu.be/vSdSFKj-hOc
Δημοσιεύτηκε στις 13 Νοε 2018
Break the norm. Hear us out tmrw on CNN
www.celinununu.com
Céline Dion has a new gender-neutral clothing line for kids
It’s part of a growing trend in kids’ clothes.
In Céline Dion’s new ad for Célinununu, her gender-neutral clothing line with the children’s retailer Nununu,
the songstress sneaks into a hospital nursery and finds the baby girls
predictably wearing pink and the baby boys wearing blue. Determined to
upend these gendered stereotypes, Dion blows fairy dust and, voilà, the
newborns appear in stylish black-and-white ensembles. One infant’s
onesie features the words “New World Order” to underscore that the time
has come to shift how society imposes rigid gender standards on
children.
The time is ripe for the type of products Célinununu offers. Parents are skirting norms by raising children without a gender designation or allowing kids to determine their own gender. The fight for transgender rights has never had more visibility. And brands are taking notice by launching gender-neutral clothing lines for adults and kids alike.
In recent years, major retailers like Target and Abercrombie & Fitch Kids
have offered such collections, as have indie retailers Izzy & Ash
and Wild Ivy. Last year, the marketing firm Mintel found that 20 percent of parents of children under age 12 who had bought kids’ clothing in the past year supported gender-neutral clothing options.
For Nununu founders Iris Adler and Tali Milchberg of Tel
Aviv, Israel, the effort to change conventions in children’s fashion
started a decade ago, making their company one of the first to take part
in this burgeoning trend. They formed the brand, they told Vox, because
they couldn’t find clothes for their kids outside the pink-blue binary
and found the underlying messages clothes sent to their children about
gender unsettling.
“It was very boyish and girly, very blue and pink,
football and flowers,” Milchberg said. “The clothes were divided into
two sections, and we were concerned about the emotional aspect.”
To counter this, they founded Nununu in 2009; it offers
gender-neutral clothes in a neutral color palette that sets it apart
from more traditional children’s clothing. And many of the items would
look just fine on adults. That’s by design, Adler explained; she and
Milchberg believe children’s fashion doesn’t have to be silly, fussy, or
frilly.
Clothes from the brand are available at Nordstrom,
Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, and other retailers, as well as from
the Nununu website. (“Nununu,” by the way, is what Israeli parents say
to naughty children, Adler and Milchberg explained.) Nununu has earned a celebrity following, including Gwen Stefani, Steph Curry, and Kourtney Kardashian, all of whom have dressed their kids in Nununu apparel. Dion, who has become a fashion influencer and last year launched the Céline Dion Collection at Nordstrom, is, of course, a Nununu fan too.
“I’ve always loved Nununu and what they represent,” she
tweeted. “Partnering with them to encourage a dialogue of equality and
possibility makes so much sense.”
But not everyone gets or agrees with the concept. While
thousands of Dion’s fans retweeted her Nununu ad campaign, others
declared that they’d lost respect for her.
Critics have dogged Nununu from the outset, according to Adler and
Milchberg, because the brand focuses on changing clothing concepts as
well as attitudes about children and gender.
Gender-neutral clothing isn’t a new concept for children
The idea that baby girls and boys should wear pink and
blue, respectively, is relatively new. For centuries, it was standard
practice for children in the West to wear white dresses until age 6. In
the United States, the baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) were the first generation to wear gender-specific clothing,
according to Smithsonian.com. In the mid-1800s, pastel colors,
including pink and blue, were linked to baby clothes but not directly to
gender.
In fact, a century ago, some retailers promoted the idea
that boys should wear pink, as they regarded it as a “stronger color,”
and blue as more “delicate and dainty” and “prettier for the girl.”
Others suggested that hair color or eye color should determine what
shade of clothing babies wore. It took until the 1940s before the “pink
for girls, blue for boys” dress custom began to cement itself.
“What was once a matter of practicality — you dress your
baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached — became
a matter of ‘Oh my God, if I dress my baby in the wrong thing, they’ll
grow up perverted,’” Jo B. Paoletti, author of Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America, told Smithsonian in 2011.
In the 1970s, gender-neutral baby wear took hold once
again, thanks to the women’s movement; feminists didn’t want boys and
girls to be raised or treated differently, and women themselves began to
dress in ways considered to be more “masculine” as they entered the
workforce in larger numbers.
The next decade, that trend reversed itself as ultrasound
technology allowed parents to learn the sex of their babies in utero
and businesses pounced on the marketing possibilities of this medical
advancement, offering everything from diapers to strollers to crib
sheets in blue and pink, as well as clothing. And the messages these
products sent about gender narrowed.
“All of a sudden it wasn’t just a blue overall; it was a
blue overall with a teddy bear holding a football,” Paoletti recalled to
Smithsonian.
Avoiding clothing that promotes gender stereotypes
For Adler and Milchberg, the implied gender norms of
these kids’ clothes were concerning; Milchberg said she didn’t want
children growing up to think that they had to either play football or
play with Barbie dolls.
So she and Adler, who have backgrounds in advertising,
decided to launch their own children’s line. But when they told friends
about their plans for unisex kids clothes, they faced ridicule.
“When we started, friends and people we know said, ‘What?
Are you guys out of your minds — unisex clothes for kids?’” Milchberg
said. “‘You will lose your money and your career.’ But we felt strongly
about it.”
“The whole concept form Nununu from the beginning, the
monochromatic colors — that’s how we dressed,” she said. “Some said we
dressed ‘more manly.’ We dressed as ourselves. Why should the kids be
different?”
Dion, according to Adler and Milchberg, felt the same
way. The duo said she became a Nununu fan five years ago after buying
some of their products for her children.
A year ago, she reached out about collaborating on a
clothing line with Nununu, the founders said. They decided to use an
unconventional ad campaign to market Célinununu, to match the company’s
unconventional ethos. The ad was uploaded to YouTube Tuesday and as of
Friday has garnered more than 412,000 views.
“We decided this is the one where we’re going all the way
out,” Milchberg said of the commercial. “We love it. We believe in it,
and it has really put our message out in such an effortless way.”
Because Célinununu has opened up a discussion about the
role of gender in children’s clothing, Adler said partnering with Dion
has given their cause greater visibility.
“We knew it has to do with more than just clothes,” Adler
said. “It was such a great opportunity to join Céline and get out this
message for equality.”
Céline Dion’s new line of gender-neutral kids clothes and creepy ads have Christian groups seriously concerned
The pricey fashion items have raised more than a few eyebrows with images of plus signs, letters and skulls featured in the clothing line, CELINUNUNU.
The 50-year old pop star promoted her partnership with Nununu and the brand’s founders Iris Adler and Tali Milchberg earlier this month, with a video ad that featured Dion magically changing infants’ pink and blue blankets and clothing at a hospital into her line of gender-neutral clothes.
“Our children, they are not really our children as we all are just links in a never-ending chain that is life,” the singer said in the video.
“I’ve always loved Nununu and what they represent,” Dion said in a statement earlier this month, according to People. ““CELINUNUNU lets children choose outside stereotypes and norms so they can bring from within their own tastes and preferences. We help them feel free, creative, inspired, respectful of one another and happy in the world.”
The website, which touts the “kids trendy boutique clothing,” features a simple color palette and the line’s slogan, “New Order,” on items that range from dresses, shirts and jackets to blankets and shoes, all aimed at spreading the message that the clothing brand “breeds equality and freedom of spirit, serving as a platform for a new humanistic education.”
And therein lies the issue for critics of Dion’s departure to “the dark side.”
“Aside from the clothing being hideously ugly, occult themes on children is disturbing,” the National Catholic Register’s Patti Armstrong wrote. “The babies and children look sullen. Who would pay $77 for a baby blanket with skulls or $161 for a jacket that looks like a trash bag. And who wants a baby playsuit with skulls?”
She spoke with Msgr. John Esseff, a priest for 65 years and an exorcist in Pennsylvania for more than four decades.
“I’m convinced that the way this gender thing has spread is demonic,” Esseff told Armstrong. “It’s false. I don’t even know how many genders there’s supposed to be now, but there are only two that God made.”
“The devil is going after children by confusing gender,” he added. “When a child is born, what is the first things we say about that child? It’s a boy, or it’s a girl. That is the most natural thing in the world to say. But to say that there is no difference is satanic.”
“This is definitely satanic,” Esseff said. “There is a mind behind it—an organized mindset.”
Nununu’s own line of fashion includes skulls, eyes and other images.
“Unless you’re a member of the Addams Family or a satanic cult, why would you dress your infant in this?” EWTN News anchor Raymond Arroyo told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. “It’s bizarre.”