Being a tween is pretty tough.
Even now, years later, I remember being this age and feeling like I was caught in this funny world of not being old enough to be considered a teenager or adult, but still feeling like I was no longer a little child either.
For many, it is a time of feeling a little uncertain, about many things. Yourself, your body, your likes and dislikes. You are too old to do everything you used to do, but not old enough to do anything that you want to. Nobody understands you; your body is changing in strange ways and leaving childhood behind can feel both exciting and more than a little scary.
In other words, 12-year-olds have enough to deal with, without being told that their bodies are in any way ‘imperfect’ or in need of some help to look better. Which is exactly French lingerie brand DIM did recently when they launched a padded bra aimed at tweens – promising to “erase imperfections.”
It was mum Florence Braud, from Bretagne, who came across the product – in the kids’ section – when she was out shopping with her daughter last week in France, and quickly took to Twitter to share her disappointment with the hashtag #We’reReallyNotDoneWithThisShit.’
“Gomme les imperfections” et “offre une forme lisse”… Pour un soutif en 70A au rayon enfant… #LeCulLesRonces pic.twitter.com/Iz6heNM6P1
— Florence Braud (@Babeth_AS) September 2, 2016
Since posting the tweet, it’s been shared hundreds of times – as others also started contacting the French brand, tweeting ‘Hello @DIMparis. So according to you, 12-year-old girls have “imperfections” that should be smoothed out?’ and ‘How awful! Bras for little girls, to make their chests bigger and “erase imperfections”! #WTF #DIM’
Florence told Buzzfeed that she’d only gone shopping with her daughter for a bra in the first place after another girl in her class had made fun of her for not wearing one – which just serves to prove the point above about how hard being 12 can really be.
‘It saddened me to see that, so soon, she was already suffering the threats [of] femininity,” Florence explained, before deeming it an ‘injunction of femininity.’
A spokesperson for the brand responded to the outrage with the following statement: ‘When we said imperfections, we meant clothing and non-physiological imperfections. This is to erase imperfections materials — folds, overlays, etc. — to make the product smooth and harmonious under clothing.’
Really, guys?! Are you for real?!
