Where to find Mommy and me clothes

(This Mommy and Me Clothes post was updated on July 2, 2021.)

When I found out that Miss Q and I were heading to Club Med Punta Cana together, I asked her if she wanted me to get some mommy and me clothes. At an age where this request could have been met with a heavy eyeroll, I was thrilled when my tween squealed “YES!”

But without the time or inclination to rely on mail-order outfits from overseas, I actually found it harder than expected to procure mommy and me matching outfits.

And it seems I wasn’t alone, because I received lots of DMs when I posted our various mother and daughter dresses with matching mommy and me shoes on Instagram Stories asking where I found everything.

It’s taken me a while to find time to pull it all together, and this is certainly not the most exhaustive list of mommy and me clothes you might find if you search the Interwebs on your own, but it should help provide you with a few ideas of where to shop or how to customize and style things you may already own — including your hair — to create some awesome mother-daughter looks. (I hope to do a mother-son outfit post one day, too.)

MOMMY AND ME CLOTHES

There are no hard and fast rules in this mommy and me matching outfits game. The key for us was to have FUN doing it. In most cases, I let Miss Q lead the way and pick out what she liked best, but in others — like the outfit below — it was guided by something one of us already had in our closet.

I’ve got a few Smash & Tess rompers and I knew the brand made kid-sized ones, so we hopped online and we found two options: a short-sleeved or long-sleeved romper. Well, our destination meant that short-sleeved was the way to go.

And this was really our big splurge because (a) I don’t often spend more than $50-75 on a kid’s clothing item since they grow so fast and (b) tend to put holes in things. However, I bought a size up so hopefully Miss Q will get two or three years of wear out of her Sunday Romper.

MOMMY AND ME CLOTHES: MOTHER AND DAUGHTER DRESSES

Matching mother and daughter dresses are probably the easiest to find items in the mommy and me clothes category.

There are four main ways to go about putting together a cohesive “Mommy and Me Clothes” look:

1. Find two identical dresses that share the same style and pattern.
2. Find the exact dress pattern like we did with the Old Navy dresses below. (Even though the styles and fabrics are different, the pattern is the same, so it works!)
3. Find complementary dress colours or patterns. You’ll often find that Hatley does this with its mother and daughter dresses — although, like in the photo above, they frequently have fully matching mommy and me clothes, there also might be, say, a navy and white striped dress with red piping for mom and it goes well with a navy and white floral pattern with red details in the girls’ size. So they’re not exactly alike but still look like they’re meant to go together.
4. Simply look through your closets and find dresses (or tops and bottoms) that look really similar. Add matching hair bobbles, shoes or jewelry to bring it all together.

For this trip, we wanted to be matchy-matchy as much as possible, so in favour of having more mommy and me clothing matches, we spread our budget out. That meant that we didn’t get the co-ordinating Hatley dresses at the time and went for these yellow Old Navy dresses that came to less than $40 total instead.

MOMMY AND ME CLOTHES: MOMMY AND ME SHIRTS

So…I have no clue what “WHO?” is supposed to mean all bedazzled as it is on these mommy and me shirts, but — heck — they matched and that was the point.

If you’re able to fit into a women’s small or medium, you can cheat the system like we did here and just buy both shirts from the kids’ section of pretty much any store that carries kid sizes 13/14. Zara Kids‘ biggest size fits like a women’s medium in nearly every area except length; you may have to try a few shirts before you find one that covers your midsection the way you like. This shirt was not my first pick, but no one needs to see me in a crop top.

The bonus of shopping in the kids’ department, of course (at least here in Ontario) is that you’ll pay half the tax. These shirts were only around $19 anyway, but money is money.

Once we had our matching shirts, we looked through our closets and shoe rack and found jean bottoms — mine a skirt and hers a pair of shorts — and then added sparkly shoes to play off the crystals in the “WHO?” appliqué. We also put our hair up in matching space buns for added fun (I’ll write more about mommy and me hair below).

You can find some cute mommy and me shirts through Etsy, too, or even look for a local DIY T-shirt shop and make your own using ideas of your own.

MOMMY AND ME CLOTHES: SWIMSUIT EDITION

Although I thought it might be challenging, I did find at least three sets of matching swimsuits for Miss Q and me. In the end, I simply chose what was on sale!

Since Swimco has an ENORMOUS selection of swimwear for every member of the family, you’re bound to find stuff that’ll match — even if it’s like these suits from Billabong that are the same colour and fabric but different styles.

I could have also found a straw hat and sunnies for Miss Q and made this extra matchy-matchy, but we’d been pouring it on pretty thick already.

MOMMY AND ME CLOTHES: MOTHER-DAUGHTER MATCHING OUTFITS STORES

If you enjoy online shopping and/or have months to wait for your mommy and me clothes to arrive from China, there are retailers like PatPat and some who sell through Amazon that offer plenty of matching stuff (especially dresses). I can’t speak to their quality, and I really like to touch and feel and try on clothes in a proper store whenever possible.

In addition to the retailers I’ve already mentioned — Smash & Tess, GAP, Old Navy, Hatley, Etsy, Billabong, Zara Kids and SKECHERS — here are a list of other stores where you can usually find mother and daughter matching outfits:

• lululemon and ivivva — there are often similar tanks, shorts, skirts and yoga pants from one store to the other (like our Studio pants near the beginning of this post, the capris in the photo above and our skirts in the shoe section picture below)
• H&M — a section just for Mommy & Me picks
• The Children’s Place & Justice — stay with me here…they have clothes that go up to size 15/16 and 20, respectively, which is like a woman’s large and XL/XXL , so you can just buy the same clothing in two different sizes straight outta kids’ stores
• Anthropologie — not the biggest selection but worth checking if you want that boho chic look they do so well
• J. Crew — some of the cutest sets of matching mommy and me clothes I found! I didn’t have the weeks needed to devote to cross-border shipping times to make it work for this trip, though, and I don’t know if it always offers matching clothes, but you’ll want to check it out
• Lilly Pulitzer — lots of fun patterns and bright colours for you and your Mini-Me
• Hanna Andersson — one of my besties is obsessed with this line and there are some super-cute mommy and me PJ sets
• PJ Salvage — more on this gem below!

There are loads of small, independent brands that have mommy and me clothes, too, but they’re so much harder and costly to get in Canada thanks to those darn import duties and brokerage fees.

MOMMY AND ME PYJAMAS

Speaking of PJ Salvage, some of my most favourite mommy-daughter clothing comes from this brand:

Sometimes there’s an entire “Mommy & Me” section (in the left-hand-side list) that changes with every new collection and there’s always something Insta-worthy that’s going to tempt you to splurge. Make no mistake, PJ Salvage is a splurge — but the comfort, quality and washability of its PJs is unmatched.

MOMMY AND ME SHOES

There wasn’t a tonne of choice when it came to finding matching mommy and me shoes.

SKECHERS, by far, had the best selection and we’ve had a number of matching pairs over the years from them. The toughest part is finding pairs that match because SKECHERS doesn’t have a dedicated spot online for mommy and me shoes that makes it easy and they have hundreds and hundreds of different styles online. You might be better off hitting a SKECHERS store!

Some of the other brands I’ve seen that offer matching mommy and me shoes include:

• Saltwater Sandals — Miss Q has a pair of these and they’re incredible quality; I know they also make women’s sandals in many of the same styles as the kids’ pairs
• Ipanema — Miss Q and I have very similar T-strap sandals from this brand, but — like SKECHERS — there’s no online section devoted to matching styles so you’ll have to scour the women’s and kids’ selections on the site or try to find a store that carries a lot of styles for Bigs and Littles
• Adidas — we can always find something that matches at Adidas, whether it’s the classic white leather sneaker or the casual slides
• TOMS — has a dedicated Mommy & Me section online
• Hunter — Miss Q and I have the same style in Hunter rain boots, but in two different colours. Same goes for the boot socks!

MOMMY AND ME HAIRSTYLES

To amp up your matching mommy and me clothes and do samesies from head to toe, focus on your hair! If you both have medium to long locks, there are so many easy hairstyles that you can share:

• Braids
• Pig tails
• Space buns (basically two messy buns — like Miss Q and I are sporting in our “WHO?” mommy and me shirts above)
• Top knots (with or without hair donuts)
• Messy buns
• Curls
• Flat-ironed
• And the list goes on…

No matter how deep you plan to go with your mommy and me clothes, the most important thing is to have fun with it and be sure your kid is genuinely into the idea.

If you have more suggestions about where people can find mommy and me fashion — especially in Canada — feel free to add it in the comments!

 

DISCLAIMER: SKECHERS provided a set of matching sneakers for us, Smash & Tess kindly sent me the short-sleeved Sunday romper for my one-week driving tour of Ireland (which you can find listed among other great travel outfits in my packing list for Ireland), and Serengeti Eyewear gave me an amazing pair of pink tortoise shell sunglasses that I l-o-v-e, but I purchased everything else featured in this post.