Let’s be clear: Nike isn’t doing something impressive here. It’s the bare minimum a brand can do
Photo: Courtesy of Nike Nike’s flagship store in London got some new mannequins this week as part of a larger redesign. Some of the mannequins are the usual thin, muscular plastic bodies that have for so long been the only things in stores. But some of them, awesomely, are not. The store now has parasport and plus-size mannequins too. Meaning people with bodies that don’t look like, well, mannequins can finally see themselves represented.
But as quickly as the press release hit the news, the backlash began with a gross op-ed from a female writer declaring that the larger mannequins were selling a lie. Her piece says the woman whose body looks like that mannequin is unhealthy and at risk of illness and death and, certainly, not about to pull on a pair of leggings and a sports bra and go do something athletic. It reads like classic trolling. Classic and effective, given the immediacy of the backlash to the backlash.
A brief note about the piece’s writer. A decade ago, she wrote a piece detailing the lack of options and how poorly she was treated while visiting designer stores in London as a size 16 woman. A piece of knowledge that makes it all the more clear how disingenuous her Nike op-ed is. It’s designed to make us mad so we’ll share it.
And, more importantly, it’s distracting us from the real issue here. Nike finally put a mannequin that looks like me, and so many women I know, into one of its stores. Fantastic. A mannequin modeled on the bodies of bigger women everywhere who wear athletic clothes to run and swim and bike and sweat and climb and also to just sit around and be comfortable. It’s great to see those bodies represented.
Nike isn’t doing something impressive here. It is doing what it needs to in order to get women with bodies bigger than a size 12 to fork over their cash and buy swoosh-covered products. And it’s doing so from behind the curve. The company first launched its plus-size line in 2017, which includes sizes from 1x to 3x.
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