Angelina Jolie, Stella McCartney Team Up for Gendered Children's Costume Line

Good news: the talented and fiercely fabulous Angelina Jolie and Stella McCartney are teaming up for a fashion collection! The dubious news: it's for a line of Disney children's costumes inspired by Jolie's upcoming Maleficent. And—hrrmph—the results appear ho-hum and anti-empowering despite the successful ladies behind it.

So far, only two pics have been released (the entire line is coming out in late-April). One is of a little boy with a long-sleeved dragon T-shirt, shorts, silver bad-angel wings, sneakers and Maleficent-esque horns. He looks rad. The other is of a little girl with a frilly, shimmering short purple dress, strappy sandals and her own horns. She looks . . . super-girly. Even the horns are annoyingly gendered: for the boy, they're black, thin and pointy; for the girl, they're purple and rounder, with a softer curve.

Listen, we're all for a line of clothing that celebrates female bad-assness. But what's with making the girl "villain" look like any other Disney princess . . . just with different headgear? Why, again, does the boy get to have all the mischievous fun? The line is even being promoted as featuring a mix of T-shirts, sneakers, sandals and (you guessed it) "sparkly princess dresses." Because no girl villain is complete without a sparkly princess dress!

We'll reserve full judgment until the entire line comes out, but this doesn't give us much hope for something that lives up to the awesomeness of either woman behind it. Nor, for that matter, does it give us much faith in the movie Maleficent itself. Can we expect a film that explores the complex nature of a woman driven to do bad things? Or will this essentially be a chance to see Angelina Jolie in lots of makeup and elaborate costumes inspire little girls to dress up like her? There may be millions of dollars in this idea (the clothing line alone will run $75 to $185), but isn't it time us girls were able to be real villains, too?

Image: @stellamccartney/Twitter