Abercrombie & Fitch Padded Bikini Top For 8-Year Olds – Massive Fail

Edgy retailer Abercrombie & Fitch somehow figured there was a buying demographic of 8-year old girls that wanted padded bikini tops. Silent pause, excuse me, I think this is where Hell swallows us.

National retailer Abercrombie & Fitch introduced through their kid’s division a padded bikini top aimed at girls as young as 7-8 years old. An article titled “Padded Bikini Top For 7-Year-Olds Draws Parents' Ire” by Claire Shipman March 28, 2011 and published on the ABC News website goes into the details of the story.

You have think of the board room discussion that led to the conclusion that padded bikini tops for sub double digit aged girls was something the market was ready to embrace. How many 7 and 8-year old girls walk around shopping malls with their own debit or credit cards, none. The logical conclusion has to be that this company thought that the parents of these young girls would walk into their stores and buy their young daughters padded bikini tops, they were wrong.

Abercrombie & Fitch grossly misread were the public was on this issue. What it may have ignited is a blow back on the company as a pied piper in pushing younger people towards far too early towards older sexual dress and behavior. Now the company has tried to retrench by increasing the target age for the exact same product, but the damage has been done.