It's a booming market and yet one fraught with controversy for brands and retailers. Erin O'Loughlin investigates the increasing demand for young girls' bras.
When Bonds withdrew its girls’ wideband bralette in sizes six and eight from the Australian market in September 2010, the brand was responding to the same cries of consumer outrage that had been levelled at Marks & Spencer and La Senza before it.
Since 2008, all three companies have come under fire from parents and children's advocates for selling bra-like products that allegedly sexualise girls as young as six. In Australia, child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg called for nothing less than a national boycott of Bonds' products.
Yet for all the mums and dads bristling with indignation there must have been others on Bonds' side, Australian retailers including Target, Kmart and Myer all confess consumer demand for young girls' bra-like products is not only established, but growing. Target, for one, offers predominantly Target-branded crop tops, lined bralettes and a range of 'first bras'.
“The fundamental reason we stock these products is that, like any retailer, we want to satisfy customer demand and give customers a choice,” a Target spokesperson says.
“These products remain on offer in our stores because there is customer demand for this range.”
Kmart says its “double-faced fabric crops” are “extremely popular and experiencing rapid growth in sales”, while Myer's intimate apparel business manager Lynda Lewis reports the 'first bra' market is a “key category” for the national department store.
“There are a number of brands that carry bra options suitable for developing girls, the most popular brands being [Myer's own] Miss Pink, Girl Boxer by Mitch Dowd, Mossimo, Davenport and Bonds,” Lewis says. “All of these brands offer good coverage and support as well as some fun and colour for this younger customer. Berlei [has] launched a new first bra option in the last few weeks and early response has been very good.”
Yet despite the clear-cut consumer demand, retailers are still facing problems servicing the market.
“There are not as many options in the market as we would like, which is one of the reasons we have developed our own program under Miss Pink,” Lewis says.
Particularly under-serviced by underwear manufacturers are young girls in need of cup sizes beyond a C.
“They are looking for a bra that meets their needs but that the styling is still young and fun," Lewis says. "Our Miss Pink range currently ranges to a D cup and we are in the process of developing bras that start at an eight back and cater to D to E cup sizes."
For intimate apparel retailers that cannot produce their own range to service the gap, Donna Tomlinson has some ideas on how to meet demand without attracting controversy. As the managing director of Auckland-based company Lingerie Brands, Tomlinson created the young girls' intimate apparel label Girls Room in 2003. Stockists of the label include New Zealand retailers Farmers, H & J Smith and Smith & Caughey.
Tomlinson has “never” attracted criticism, she says. “I do have to say when we first launched it we were very particular. We never photographed it on girls... [For] probably a good three years we only ever sketched the product or drew it on this characterised cartoon girl's body. When we drew it on her, she always had jeans on, she was never in a bra and briefs.
“As the brand's expanded to the point where it has, we have had to start advertising it but again we are very, very careful of what we do and how we do it.”
Girls Room promotes its product via in-store posters, steers well clear of magazines, and uses healthy models with “very tiny” busts. The brand also promotes the mother-daughter shopping experience.
“We've always been about ‘this is not just something young girls would go in and buy on their own’. It's something that we want a mother and daughter to share,” she says.
As for the product itself, the bras are designed to protect rather than push up or pad out, something Target and Myer also emphasise about their ranges. Girls Room sizes have been modified for the teenage body such that the label's largest cup size – a C – equates to a B in an adult's lingerie range.
“The cup we have designed and run with since 2003 is what we call a graduated contoured cup. It protects a young developing bust which goes through different growth stages and it helps to smooth and even out their shape,” Tomlinson says.
Target, meanwhile, emphasises education.
“Our style guidelines regarding children's underwear are clear in relation to style, cut and imaging,” the spokesperson says. “The guidelines are reinforced to our buying team on a regular basis to try to minimise the risk of inappropriate garments being ranged in our stores.”
Tomlinson's final observation is that while television programs such as Trinny and Susannah and How to look good naked keep educating adult women on the importance of underwear and shapewear, the same message is likely to keep filtering through to young girls and tweens. Demand for girls' bra-like products is unlikely to die down.