This Super Skinny Topshop Mannequin Is Pissing A Lot of People Off
Is it time for a mannequin revolution?
Student Becky Leigh Hooper, who is of average build and is a size 4/6, posed next to a mannequin at Topshop to show the juxtaposition between what shoppers and real women look like compared to the plastic frames that the clothes are displayed on — and people are pissed at what they see. Hopper posted the photo Monday afternoon and it has been retweeted more than 3,000 times since.
"It doesn’t exactly encourage teenagers to be healthy if they think that’s what’s desirable," Hooper tweeted. She also called the mannequin “irresponsible” and noted that it’s images such as these that promote poor body image. But Hooper speaks to a larger issue surrounding mannequins. While many stores have made strides to make their mannequins more robust, Toshop doesn’t seem to have gotten the message. Glassons in New Zealand obviously didn’t either. The clothing store for young women recently gained international attention for its mannequin with protruding ribs. Shopper Emily Robins tweeted, “Check out this mannequin at the clothing store @Glassons. Purging is in this season! xx.” And earlier this year, lingerie brand La Perla received similar criticism for a too thin display mannequin.
But there are stores around the world that are doing the whole mannequin thing correctly. Swedish retailer Åhléns features plus-size mannequins in their lingerie section. Department store Debenhams in the U.K. started displaying U.S. size 14 mannequins to better reflect its shopper’s bodies. A few years ago, Spain‘s Ministry of Health even went so far as to tell companies that mannequins had to be a size 6 or above. And Sears recently introduced five new mannequins that are designed to look more like “normal” bodies than runway ones and are even molded after actual Americans.
