"There is a line that you don't want to cross and a push-up bra incident was 5,000 miles past that," said blogger Hollee Actman-Becker of Gladwyne. Actman-Becker is the mother of an 8-year-old daughter whom she admits to dressing in Juicy Couture.
Understandably, the cleavage-promoting top sent parents into a hissy. Bloggers raised holy heck. The story made the morning-show circuit. Commentators, many of them male, lambasted pop culture. What was fashion doing to our innocent little girls?
A 75-year-old woman in a wheelchair was cited for trespassing as she protested the faux pas in front of Abercrombie's Costa Mesa, Calif., store. Her sign read: "Abercrombie: pedophiles sexualizing little girls through clothing."
Ohio-based Abercrombie & Fitch removed the Ashley from its website last week (although it still sells other padded triangle bikini tops) and said in an e-mail that it "will not be issuing a formal statement regarding the kid's bikini issue." The e-mail, which was sent in response to my query, went on, "The bikini was not intended for, or, best suited for those under the age of 12."
But the damage had been done. A push-up's sole purpose is to boost cleavage for the sake of attracting attention - usually sexual. Making this top available to a kid is skeevy.
Actually, allowing little girls to copy much of Mommy's fashion borders on inappropriate.
"By having girls dress and act like much older people, we are supporting that idea and erasing the hierarchy in the family," said Mary Rourke, an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Widener University who specializes in children and families.
