Is Victoria’s Secret targeting teens?
Victorias Secret is coming under attack for its new Bright Young Things campaign advertising a Spring Break-themed line featuring undies emblazoned with slogans like dare you, wild, feeling lucky and call me. (Victorias Secret doing something tacky? I am shocked , you guys.)More than 2,000 people have signed a Change.Org petition for the company to shut down the campaign and pull the collection from shelves. Diana Cherry, the mother of four who started the campaign, wrote in the petition that she was appalled that Victorias Secret is aiming its marketing reach younger and younger. She argues:
Children are not sex objects; children are not things. Middle schoolers are not old enough to make responsible, safe decisions about sex. This marketing sends the message, the younger, the better, which harms young girls self-esteem and pressures them into engaging in risky sexual behavior before they are ready to make informed, consenting decisions about sex and their bodies.
The accusation that these undies are being marketed toward tweens and pre-college teens seems to have been inspired in large part by a remark Victorias Secret chief financial officer Stuart Burgdoerfer made at a recent conference: When somebodys 15 or 16 years old, what do they want to be? They want to be older, and they want to be cool like the girl in college, and thats part of the magic of what we do at Pink. The official story, however, is that Pink is aimed at 18- to 22-year-olds: In a statement responding to the recent controversy, the company said, Victorias Secret PINK is a brand for college-aged women. Despite recent rumors, we have no plans to introduce a collection for younger women. - http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/is_victorias_secret_targeting_teens/
Change.Org is about a decade too late and is barking up the wrong tree. Revealing wear for girls as young as eight, has been around for at least that long. While not to prevalent in schools due to dress codes, after school and casual wear for girls 10 to 14 has been open ended and not terribly revealing unless one has a moral bug up their ass.
As the mother of two tween girls, I'm supposed to share in the collective horror I guess but I actually think the whole controversy is absolutely ridiculous. Because not only are these parents misinformed, they're missing the entire point.
First of all, " Bright Young Things " isn't supposed to be an "all-new" line for tweens. " Bright Young Things " is just a spring break-themed offshoot of Victoria's Secret's PINK division, which is already popular with young females including mine. Furthermore, underwear don't interest them as much as tops and accessories.
It appears to me, that if your tween's number one priority is shopping for panties with the intent to seduce, the problem really lays close to home as opposed to the store.
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Aeon,
You took the words right out of my mouth. My twin daughters, now 18 were buying "Pink" from the time they were 13. Some of the clothes were cute, other ones were disgusting, and I didn't let them buy it.
This is a day late and a dollar short.
Mike stop encouraging Mike or I will have to come up with a Mike corner to stick you two in!
Tru Dat! But he's kind of like having the class clown in the room.
My main point is that it's just another classic reaction from the mindless right...like people who react to headlines without reading the entire article. Fashions like this for "tweens" (girls between the ages of 9 and 13 - (considered too old for toys and too young for boys) have been around for awhile. While I have nothing against those styles, even though some are provocative, I'm not big on spending a lot of money on something they'll grow out of in a few months.