Push Up Bikini Tops for Kids is Crossing the Line

The news reporter called me at 2:30 this past Friday and asked me to comment on Abercrombie’s latest marketing blitz. As the world knows by now, Abercrombie Kids posted “Ashley’s “push up bra” triangle bikini top” on the website, marketing to 8-13 year olds. As I was talking to the reporter, I typed in and got to the page they were all buzzing about.

There it was, for all of the parents to buy for their young girls, a push up bra bikini top! They have since taken down the words “push up”.
But then, the reporter turned the focus on why he wanted me to come up to the studio to go live in three hours…they wanted me to throw my support behind Abercrombie!

“Are you kidding me? Did you not take a look at my site?” I said.

Ironically, he was not aware that I had just launched Sally Miller Undercover, with Nordstrom, an age appropriate line of bras and underwear for tweens!! They just re-ordered, so I know that the Moms out there are like me, in need of this product!

After 20 plus years working as a fashion designer for the girls 8-14 market, it wasn’t until I was looking for age appropriate tween bras for my own girls, now 11 and 13 that I knew it had to be created. I could not find non-wire or strapless convertible bras anywhere that had the right amount of padding for the girls to feel safe and for me to feel ok about sending them out without cleavage! Necessity is the mother of invention as the saying goes..and so it went. I set out to work with the best in the field, and there she was, Roslyn Harte, winner of 4 Life Achievement Awards for her contributions to the intimate apparel world. After 60 plus years in the business and still working everyday, we set out to fill this very important need in my market. Just as importantly, I made sure to create colors for different skin tones. Finally, in the year 2011, “Girls of Every Shade can go Undercover™”!

So you can imagine, being an inclusive and diversified brand that is all about promoting self-confidence and nurturing self-esteem, I get this call! But just to be certain, I first sent my assistant out to buy the bikini top just to see if it was really as bad as everyone was saying. It is worse than I thought! Now, I am not a prude, I am the girl who promotes self-expression!! But where do we draw the line?

By creating a push up bikini top in the first place to promote fake cleavage to tweens is unconscionable. I hope that all parents unite and do not buy this product. Now that I have seen it with my own eyes, I will be returning the bikini top to the store.
And just as a side note, my 13 year old just read this and said to me that I was being mental, taking it too far. I asked her how she would feel as a CIT this summer at camp with her 3rd
graders parading into the pool all with fake cleavage. The look I got back was all the confirmation as a Mom and as a fashion designer for Tweens could ask for.