We are Michelle and Alisia, a lesbian couple, and parents to our daughter, born August 2008.
As any prospective parents do throughout a pregnancy, we browsed the baby isles and shops every weekend, cooing over the tiny 0000 clothes, and putting every second thing we saw on lay-by!
To our dismay (but not surprise...), there was an abundance of "I love my mummy and daddy" bibs, shirts, onesies etc. and not one single item that even hinted that a child can have anything more or anything less than one mummy and one daddy. It was then that we decided to make our own.
In January 2009, we mentioned our idea to a few friends, who were so excited at the prospect of having some alternatives for their Rainbow Family, and expressed interest in buying some from us! What a great idea! With the distinct lack in anything remotely ‘proud’ and Australian, the idea of selling these gorgeous shirts was like a stroke of genius! And Alternatykes Clothing was born!
So we started to hunt for some clothes to use. We had been using plain white onesies from a large department store, but this wasn’t very cost-effective and was, quite frankly, a bit boring!!! So we searched some wholesale suppliers. We felt that frustration again while searching for shirts/singlets/onesies and finding only white or washed out pastel colours. Why can’t a baby wear colour?!?! And like a lightbulb, we had another stroke of genius... there has to be many MANY other parents, not necessarily gay or lesbian parents, who want a gorgeous bright coloured outfit to put on their bub? So we sourced some bright coloured clothing, and made some more designs...
After many long hours trawling the web searching for the brightest colours, and many more hours devoted to making the perfect designs... here is AlternaTykes Clothing... some Rainbow Family designs for gay and lesbian parented families, some fun designs for the straight (but not narrow) families... all of them bright, colourful, and exciting - just like our kids!
Here is AlternaTykes Clothing – Alternatives for your AlternaTykes!.
