You know what the trouble is with young girls today? Their breasts aren’t pushed up and separated enough. And that just makes me MAD!
MAD MAD MAD!!!!
Not sure if you heard about this over the weekend, but abercrombie kids (Abercrombie & Fitch’s shop for boys and girls ages 7-14) has rolled out their spring line of bathing suits and at the helm of their collection is the Ashley Push Up Triangle padded bikini top (bottoms sold separately).
No joke. A padded bikini top, offered up to girls as young as 7. Because we all know your 1st grader could stand to look a little more like the women on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition. Duh.
The picture above contains the original name and description. As a result of a barrage of complaints aimed at the retailer, they recently updated the product name on the site to the Ashley Striped Triangle, still described as padded, but has not pulled the product off of shelves. Or the padding out of the top.
An additional edit was made today that omitted “padded” as a descriptor.
Abercrombie, you’re doing a lot of work for an itty bitty booby suit. What’s your next edit – selling the bottom only?
I think this sends a signal to young girls that they are sexual objects and to grown men that they are appropriate sexual objects.
I understand that some girls are in that in-between stage where they have budding breasts and it feels awkward for them to not fill out a bikini top. I say that’s why there are one-piece swimsuits.
Padded and push-up are ways that women play at “altering” their bodies. Everyone knows that the whole point of a “push-up” is to lift, separate and enhance the breasts. Is that the lesson we want to teach our young children? If you’re not sexy, you’re not beautiful?
On the hypocritical side, I am more than excited for my own daughter to put on makeup and don some sequined and probably whorish-looking dance recital outfit one day. Because I think it’s cute. And I did it when I was little. So why do we constantly push our children to look like, act like and dress like adults? Where does it cross the line? Is it cute for your baby to wear Juicy across her tush at 6 months but not at 6 years?
Abercrombie is no stranger to controversy. They have come under fire in the past for portraying nude teenage models in sexually provocative attire in their catalogs, offering thong underwear in children’s sizes with the words “eye candy” and “wink, wink” on them, and who could forget the “Wong Brothers Laundry Service” t-shirt uproar. Controversy is a great marketing strategy – but at what expense?
What do you think? Hysteria warranted or not?
