The Geordie Shore star was less than impressed when she heard Topshop bosses had announced plans to ban the use “unrealistically skinny” mannequins in stores. To fulfill those proportions you’d need to have the height of Karlie Kloss and the tiny waist size of Kim Kardashian.
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However, the vitriol seems to have taken Topshop by surprise, who admitted that the mannequins, which are made of solid fibreglass, were an unusual shape as “their form needs to be of certain dimensions to allow clothing to be put on and removed easily”.
“That said, we have taken yours and other customers’ opinions and feedback on board and going forward we are not placing any further orders on this style of mannequin”.
Jonathan Berlin’s been in the mannequin business for 28 years and reckons his models make up 60-70% of what you see in shop windows.
Topshop has bowed to public pressure and will no display its clothes on a particular type of mannequin that customers deemed too thin.
Topshop responded to Berry’s post, which has amassed over 3000 likes and 400 shares, apologising for not “living up to the levels of service we aim to deliver”.
She does have a point: at 187cm tall and a dress size 6, the Topshop mannequins would make even a Victoria’s Secret Angel look big boned. In October, another shopper shared a photo comparing her friend’s size 4/6 legs to the mannequin’s eerily thin stems, much to the outrage of social media. Like Berry’s post, the message was retweeted and favorited thousands of times, proving there’s a growing backlash against the unrealistic body images promoted by the fashion industry.
University of Hull graduate Miss Hopper said she was thrilled stores would no longer be promoting an unrealistic body image for young women.
Having become aware of Berry’s open letter, Topshop commented directly on her page, leaving the following statement. Publicly and pretty reasonably – but also explaining the logistics behind their decision, and then promising change: “For some background the mannequin you saw in store is supplied by a company that has been working with lots of different retailers for the past 30 years”.
“The most important thing is to have a considered response”, she says.
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“The offending mannequin in question, which the company claimed to be a size 10, was “stylised to have more impact” and was considerably taller than the average British woman at a whopping 6’1″.
