Fashion retailer Zara has sparked a heated debate over the representation of children within the fashion industry, after their latest ca...
Fashion retailer Zara has sparked a heated debate over the representation of children within the fashion industry, after their latest campaign was labelled 'inappropriate' by many social media users.
The Spanish brand took to Instagram to share photos of their new kidswear range with their audiences last weekend.
Photographed by Fabien Baron, the campaign features a young girl dressed in a puffy sleeved dress standing by the ocean - as well as modelling the design while sat on a bed.
However, the advert didn't have the effect Zara was hoping for and instead received a flood of negative comments on Instagram, which forced them to remove the images - and one British mother took to Mumsnet to debate the campaign further.
Speaking under the handle 'ASauvignonADay', the anonymous woman shared a selection of the deleted images and asked others if they similarly felt uncomfortable with them.
She wrote: 'Personally, I don't like it. I think the poses and whole thing is inappropriate for a young girl.'
A stream of responses agreed with the mother and accused the brand of dressing the child model as an adult.
'Creepy. Very strange choices. The third one is the worst, but even the first one has a strange pose for a child,' wrote one, while another penned:
'It's adult styling and designed to make her look not like a young child but like an object of attraction. It's bad enough they do that to women ALL the time but wrong to do it to a child.'
A third added: 'Don't like it. Especially the last photo where she sort of has her dress pulled up between her legs.'
Many of the comments particularly focused on the third image shared by Zara, which shows the child model sat on a bed staring directly into the camera lens.
Accusing the brand of sexualising the child, one angry person vented: 'It's too adult and serious, even without the pretty sexualised third photo. Kids are supposed to be playing, laughing, loving life! I hate these sorts of kids photoshoots.
Another commented: 'First two I was thinking I could see why people wouldn't like this, but it's not pushing my buttons. The third one is definitely dodgy though. Ewww,' while a further wrote:
'Ewwww. Definitely not a good way to advertise the dress. Children's shots should be fun and bright as children should be - not that weird moody posing and as others have said definitely to grown up poses.'
Others were less convinced that the campaign was inappropriate but confessed it doesn't encourage them to shop at Zara.
A user speaking under the handle 'TellerTuesday4EVA' wrote: 'Well it's bloody awful (the dress and style of advert) but I don't think it's enough to make me uncomfortable. Can't see why they thought it made a good advertising campaign though.'
'Looks depressing and bleak. Doesn't make me want to buy those clothes. I see nothing wrong with it though? Other than it being a bit of a c*** advert lol,' wrote one, while a third added:
'I mean maybe if you were mid to late teens you might want to look moody and ethereal... but not this young? Who is this actually aimed at? Kids won't look at it at all and mums will just be a bit disturbed by it. I don't think it's sexually inappropriate, it's just really bad advertising that's missed it's target audience.'
You'd think this "child" was posing for a porn magazine or something....not children's clothes...!!!
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