Is This Appropriate Teen and Tween Fashion?
September 10, 2009 by Cyndi Lavin
Filed under My Family & Friends
As I prepare for yet another wild and woolly adventure on Project Runway, I was looking around to see what was new in fashion this week. And this is what I found, reportedly being sold in Abercrombie and Fitch, although not on their website:
Abercrombie and Filth…that’s about right. Is there anyone who thinks that this is appropriate fashion for a woman of any age? And you know very well that they market primarily to the teen and tween market.
In case you can’t read it, it says, “Math Tutor + Bed – Clothes /(divided by) Your Legs = Anatomy Lesson”
Have I just gotten too old? I’m just wondering if anyone else is feeling a sense of outrage over the constant pornification of our girls, at the same time as we protest violence against women and demand equal treatment.
Image: Laura Ingraham
Ugh. No, not even remotely appropriate. This is definitely too risque for the tweener and teen age group. Even if it was aimed for a slightly older crowd (say, change it to “math prof”, or something more collegiate), it would still be tacky.
You’re dead-on.
Thanks. When my kids were in middle school and high school, I sometimes felt that I was the most backwards, conservative, old stick in the mud mother around. But now my kids tell me differently, especially my daughter. She finds those “fashions” disgusting too.
I agree, it’s highly inappropriate. I think the shorts with “cheer” etc. on the rear are inappropriate as well, but every school seems to have them for their practice uniform.
That’s another of my pet peeves in girls’ clothing, Leslie. Why don’t they just write, “Look at my butt” across the back and be done with it?
And we wonder why the teen pregnancy rate is still so high when glorifying sex to get something is put out there like this. This is inappropriate for any age.
This is terribly inappropriate for anyone at any age. I would hope even teens and tweens would have more self esteem than to wear something like that. But, as long as people are willing to buy it, they’ll continue to sell it.
I’ve been appalled to see some of the thing A and Filth are putting out for clothing. I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination but this just drives me nuts. And I agree w/ the poster above about ‘cheer’ or whatever is on the butt of shorts, pants, etc.
I agree – tacky. I am only 33, and saw a t-shirt, worn by a guy about my age, with 4 children in tow, that said “Try the sausage” with a hand pointing down to his crotch.
I really wanted to tell him it was inappropriate.
NO, NO, and NO!! Not appropriate and sad they market it, sad anyone would buy it and sad that those that do, don’t have the guidance to have developed self-value.
My generation faught for women’s equality and this generation is not only taken a step backward, it has slipped down to the bottom of the hill.
Carol
Inappropriate!!! There is enough selling of sex today without putting it into words. It is too hard to keep children children and go shopping for appropriate clothes. I have “fought” for 22 years to dress my kids appropriately as children and modestly. And as they age to teach them what is best just one left at home and keep hoping for the victorian age when you cover everything up LOL
I agree, it’s disgusting. I heard some boys say something similar in high school. I think I was a sophomore at the time, and I have no idea how old the boys were, but I never imagined I’d see anything like that on a t-shirt. Ditto on the writing on shorts. If you must have words on your butt, put them on underwear so that you’re the only one who knows they’re there. You’re definitely not old, Cyndi. I’m 22 and I completely agree with all the comments above.
Thank you, Catherine. My daughter is 22 (see, I *am* old…I could be your mom!), and she would never never never never wear something like this. I guess I got spoiled with her for a kid…I never had to worry about what she was wearing, so I didn’t pay much attention to what was really going on in some of the stores
I totally agree, not appropriate. My daughter just crossed into the 7-16 size bracket and I have emailed everyone I know who can sew to help me make her things. It is extremely difficult to find items in stores that are not trashy. She is only six but is very tall and wears a size 8. Someone needs to offers some Boden-esque alternatives on this side of the pond. Look at the Pink Fig patterns – totally cute and creative.
An old saying goes “Keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool — open it and remove all doubt.” That kind of trash leaves no doubt in my mind.
I am having my rose colored glassed tinted a lot heavier!! I can’t change the world but I can hide.
Sorry — I know that is not good but I fought for equal rights and now I see them thrown away. I was once thought a free thinker, now I am a prude. Because I don’t think a sentence made up of only 4 letter dirty words make up a comedy act, or a life.
I really feel for you all that are raising children. Keep up the good work.
A&F does this pretty much every year — put out raunchy unacceptable, offensive t-shirts, sell a whole bunch of them before anyone really notices, sit through the inevitable uproar when they are noticed, issue a lame apology, pull them from their site, and laugh all the way to the bank. There’s an old saying about even bad publicity being good publicity. I think it’s their corporate motto. *sigh*
“Appropriate”? Maybe not, but it’s a shirt that appeals to teenagers for a reason: teenagers are, in general, walking hormones that are obsessed with sex. Most of them have a very lewd, bawdy sense of humour. Even my mom admits that back in her young days she and her girlfriends tittered over dirty jokes and now she’s PhD of Divinity. It’s a stage, it’s one of the reasons we don’t call them ‘adults’. I think all of these women getting up in arms over a dirty joke and talking about how these things are setting back women’s rights and destroying society as we know it, etc, etc, need to relax–teens will be teens, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.
Interesting perspective you’ve got on this. I guess I think that there’s a world of difference between giggling over a dirty joke and wearing one across your chest
Personally, I find it offensive and would not allow my kids to wear or even think of wearing something like that. I have 3 girls between 23 yrs old and 10. ( And,I’m not that old either). I can laugh at dirty jokes or even tell them with the rest. But, for a young kid to advertise that sort of “joke” as some call it is inappropriate. Yes, they are full of racing hormones but do they have to tell the world? NO! This is the reason I don’t shop at A&F and neither do my kids, for that matter. It’s just a stupid marketing plan to get the world to notice them and drum up more sales. Just some of us are smarter than they are and don’t fall for it.
This is where we are now. Even when things are wrong and destructive to the lives of our there are still people like this who cannot wait to corrupt our young women and men. The further we get from what is right, the more depraved our society will be.