Abercrombie Slammed for Padded Bikinis for Girls

Often-controversial clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is in another pickle, this time for marketing push-up bikini tops to young girls, reports the New York Daily News. Labeled "push up triangles" before Internet outrage prompted a re-naming, the tops are for sale on the Abercrombie Kids website, aimed at children younger than 15. "Shame on you for sexualizing small children," said a commenter on the Abercrombie site. "In a world where parents work hard to keep their children safe, you go and make little girls look like they have breasts? Perverts."

The tops are in a section of the Abercrombie catalog marketed to children ages 7-14, but the actual bikini sizes fit children at least 56 inches tall, which would include the tallest 9-year-old girls and older, according to pediatric size charts. That's apparently "big" enough to partially soothe Mediaite. "Having such a product marketed to 11-12 year olds is grounds for legitimate debate, but it's a far cry from 'sexing up' little girls," says Mediaite's rebuttal to the media hoopla. (More Abercrombie & Fitch stories.)