Topshop might finally ditch its super skinny mannequins after this complaint

In the midst of gaining supermodel Gigi Hadid as their new campaign girl, a customer who visited a Topshop United Kingdom location blasted the clothing retailer via Facebook, because of an extremely skinny mannequin on display in their store.



Clearly frustrated by the decision, which was triggered by a customer complaint that went viral, she took to her Twitter account to vent.

“We think it’s important to showcase a healthy size image”, Topshop said in a statement to ETonline.

Holly’s loyal army of Twitter followers weren’t too pleased with the size eight beauty’s harsh comments. Mariah Chase, CEO of plus-size seller Eloquii, told CNBC that she estimates around 65 percent of American females are plus sized, but plus sized apparel constitutes less than 20 percent of all clothes sales.

I was stopped in my tracks by the mannequin in the picture I’ve shared with this post… “It’s about reflecting real women’s sizes”.

Since then Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson has lobbied for mannequins to have more meat on them and department stores Debenhams and Marks and Spencer have followed suit, introducing size 16 mannequins to their shop floors. “It’s simply showing you the item of clothing”. “As you are aware, the year is 2015″. To fulfill those proportions you’d need to have the height of Karlie Kloss and the tiny waist size of Kim Kardashian.

However, Topshop said it has listened to the feedback and “going forward we are not placing any further orders on this style of mannequin”.

Laura Kate Berry, a UK-based Topshop customer, sent an open letter to the popular chain on Facebook last week after stumbling upon a mannequin she called “ridiculously shaped”.

“I’m old enough and wise enough to know I will never be this size, but as we’ve all been impressionable teens at one point, I’m fairly certain if any of us were to witness this in our teenage years, it would have left us wondering if that was what was expected of our bodies”.

“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″.

Others, however, commended Topshop for a “very thoughtful considerate response”, and asked other users why they were “till not happy – glass half empty people…”

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”.

Topshop ditches unrealistically thin mannequin after slating from customer

Leave a Reply