Just when you think we have drained everything out of the ‘Stupid Idea’ pool and closed it down for good, someone starts filling it up. Hello Abercrombie & Fitch.
A & F, the retailer often associated with sexualizing young adults, is selling a padded, push-up bikini top for young girls on their A&F Kids site. (a website with a target audience of 7-13yr olds)
As the news of this product started to gain some attention, A&F quickly changed the website. They did not remove the product, merely dropped a couple of words.
‘Push-up’, and ‘padded’ have disappeared from the online catalogue ad. (Tip of the cap to Julia Rubin at Styleite.com for catching this change.)
The question still remains. . . Padded, push-up bras for second grade girls?
Controversy about sexualizing young girls is not new to A&F. Dial it back to 2002 when the company was selling thongs to pre-teens. Thongs decorated with cherries and hearts on them, and sayings like ‘wink wink’ and ‘kiss me.’ The outrage was substantial, but even more bizarre was the official response from a company spokesperson, Hampton Carney who was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle saying;
“It’s not appropriate for a 7 year old, but it is appropriate for a 10 year old. Once you get about 10, you start to care about your underwear, and you start to care about your clothes.”
What message are they sending to young girls?
As a non-parent, I literally have ‘no skin’ in this game, but I can be outraged for my brothers and sisters who do have young children.
And what would be the reaction be if two young ladies who happen to live in Washington DC and are right in the middle of the desired demo for A&F Kids, let’s call them Malia and Sasha… one is 12 and the other 9 yrs old. What do you think their mom might do if they ordered these bathing suits online and had them delivered to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
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