We Heart: Ellen DeGeneres’ Badass Clothing Line for Girls

Last month, Gap released a line of clothes for girls that subverts gender norms and celebrates kids as they really are. And oh yeah, it’s designed by your favorite talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres.

The promo videos—perhaps our favorite part of the GapKids x ED campaign—not only include a women’s empowerment anthem by Le Tigre (“Deceptacon”), but also feature a gang of self-confident real girls who are living beyond the confines of gender stereotypes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIT1XyD_pPQ

The line—which features a muted color palette and includes T-shirts with empowering messages, “tomboy-ish” details such as cuffed muscle-shirt sleeves and stylish-yet-functional pants and jeans—is worn in the video above by skateboard crew the Pink Helmet Posse, award-winning 12-year-old drummer Alexey, “super business girl” (and aspiring future president!) Asia, who started her business at age 5, and  9-year-old Torrae, who builds robotic hands for kids with disabilities.

The collection launched alongside a social media campaign, #heyworld. The goal of the hashtag, according to a press release, is for users to send uplifting messages to girls. “Using the hashtag #heyworld followed by a name, a girl’s friend, mother, father or mentor can issue a call to action for social messages of encouragement and love to any girl in need of positive support, cheering her on through the power of positive words,” it reads.

Said DeGeneres, “I know from my own experience that nothing makes you feel better than being who you are and celebrating what makes you unique. I think if we shine a light on real girls doing incredible things, that’ll encourage other girls and boys to do incredible things.”

She added in an interview with Mashable, “It’s really important to dress in a way that is you, and these clothes that we have designed together are very unique and very powerful and very different. … Hopefully young girls are going to get empowered by this, which is my goal.”

Photos and video via Gap

About

Stephanie hails from Toronto, Canada. She is a Ms. writer, a master of journalism candidate and a hip hop dancer/instructor/choreographer. She got her start in feminist journalism at the age of 16 when she was a member of the first editorial collective at Shameless magazine—and she has never looked back.