Marks and Spencer apologises for selling ‘bra tops’ to six year olds
By ANIThursday, May 13, 2010
London, May 13 (ANI): Brit retailer Marks and Spencer has issued an apology for selling “bra tops” to six-year-old girls.
The Santoni heart-patterned underwear tops were aimed at 6-8 year old girls and labelled “bra tops”, although some were also called “crop tops”.
A tag attached to the underwear said it was “a great way of getting girls used to the idea of wearing bras”.
However, M and S has had to change both the labelling and description after children’s charities and parents criticised the underwear.
“We’ve campaigned to combat a trend towards the sexualisation of children and one aspect of this is the production and selling of clothes that are absolutely inappropriate,” the Telegraph quoted Claude Knights, the director of child protection charity Kidscape, as telling the Guardian.
Denying that the product was a bra top, Mark and Spencer said: “We’re sorry that the labelling of our Santoni top has caused confusion.
“The garment is designed to be worn under clothing and doesn’t feature any support or padding, which makes it totally appropriate for its intended age range. All future packaging of the product will be correctly labelled and we have already altered its online description.
“We are totally committed to ensuring our clothing offer is age appropriate.” (ANI)
