Topman forced to pull 'offensive' t-shirts

CLOTHING RETAILER TOPMAN has been forced to pull a number of items from its stores and online after it was accused of comparing women to animals and glamourising domestic violence on two of its t-shirts.

The trendy men’s clothing store said in a statement today that it would remove the two items of clothing after their sale in stores and online prompted an outcry on Twitter with many saying they found the t-shirts offensive and demeaning to women.

Topman, which has nine stores in Ireland, was not immediately able to confirm if the t-shirts were on sale in its outlets in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Wexford but they were available online.

One of the t-shirts, retailing at £16, carried the slogan: “Nice New Girlfriend: What Breed Is She?”

The other, retailing at £14, bore the slogan: : “I’m so sorry but” followed by a list of excuses with tick boxes: “You provoked me; I was drunk (box ticked); I was having a bad day; I hate you; I didn’t mean it; I couldn’t help it.”

In a statement on its Facebook page, the clothing retailer, owned by the Arcadia Group, said:

We have received some negative feedback regarding two of our printed T-shirts.

Whilst we would like to stress that these T-shirts were meant to be light-hearted and carried no serious meaning we have made the decision to remove these from store and online as soon as possible.

We would like to apologise to those who may have been offended by these designs.

Whilst some tweeted their belief that the incident had been overblown, one Conservative MP, Louise Mensch appeared to call for Topman to donate to domestic violence charities: “How much to domestic violence charities, #Topman ?” she tweeted earlier.