Daughters of the revolution

Zara has had to apologise for producing ‘suggestive' T-shirts for six-year-old girls - but it's just the latest symptom of the pernicious problem of high-street sexism

- Helen Coffey

Now, I’m no fashion designer. But I’ve got questions for the person who pitched a T-shirt for girls – children, not women – emblazoned with the words “The perfect snack” on the front, and “Take a bite” on the back, alongside two halves of a cut strawberry. I also have questions for the presumably more senior person who heard the idea and said: “Sure, sounds great – get it into production ASAP!”

For someone at high-street chain Zara must have signed off on the whole thing, leading to the brand’s most recent embarrassing PR disaster. One concerned mother posted about the T-shirt on TikTok, saying: “I am not one to be overly sensitive about clothing, and this was in the girls’ section. Just wait till you see what’s on the back. If you have bought this for your child, you need serious words with yourself, in my opinion. I’m so shocked. ‘Take a bite’ – is it just me? Or is this just not OK?”

Laura Wilson described the top, designed for six- to seven-yearolds, as “very suggestive, vile and grim and not appropriate for a child”, adding that she would “never have my daughter walking around with ‘take a bite’ on the back of her T-shirt”.

Unfortunately for Zara, Wilson, who goes by the TikTok handle “chaos.to.sanity”, has more clout than most on the social platform thanks to a 57,000-strong following. Her post quickly garnered more than 41,000 views, and had nearly 500 comments at the time of writing, many of which expressed a similarly disgusted sentiment. After it was pointed out that the term “snack”, in colloquial parlance, can be used to describe a person who is sexually attractive, Zara was left with no choice but to pull the item from stores and issue an apology.