John Lewis has launched a range of gender-neutral children's clothes, becoming the first retailer in the country to remove "boys" and "girls" labels.

The department store said it did not want to "reinforce gender stereotypes" with its childrenswear, which now has unisex labels on all clothing from 0-14 years.

School uniforms are still in gender categories but are expected to switch to unisex soon.

The store is thought to be the first in the country to make the move credit: John Lewis

Caroline Bettis, the head of childrenswear at John Lewis said: "We introduced new non-gender specific John Lewis stitched labels and combined “Girls & Boys” swing tags to clothing for John Lewis own label collections in 2016.

"In line with this change, our policy is to no longer specify areas or use signage which say “Girls” or “Boys” in our shops.

" We do not want to reinforce gender stereotypes within our John Lewis collections and instead want to provide greater choice and variety to our customers, so that the parent or child can choose what they would like to wear."

The store has removed "girls" and "boys" labels from its clothes credit: John Lewis

Campaign group Let Clothes be Clothes, which highlights gender stereotyping in children's clothing, is thought to have been consulted by the store before the change, which it said was "fantastic news".

"Higher-end, independent clothing retailers have been more pro-active at creating gender-neutral collections, but we hope unisex ranges will filter down to all price points. We still see many of the supermarkets, for example, using stereotypical slogans on their clothing," it added.

Other retailers have recently been criticised for selling clothes which campaigners say reinforce damaging gender stereotypes for children.

Last year a video of Daisy Edmonds, 8, criticising Tesco's children's range went viral, as she highlighted how the boys’ shirts featured slogans like “Desert adventure awaits", "Hero" and "Think outside the box” – while the girls’ said "Hey!", "Beautiful" and "I feel fabulous."

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