”I stood there in silence for about 10 seconds.”
No matter who you are, shopping can be a stressful time. It can be exhausting, laborious and challenging at the best of times, but it should never be unpleasant because of a sales assistant.
A young woman was shopping in Victoria’s Secret in Cardiff when she was subjected to an unpleasant experience.
Abbie Walsh-Greenfield decided to share the experience, while calling out the store, in an open letter.
”In all honesty, having not even looked at the VS website before, let alone going to the actual store, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I’d definitely seen ‘plus size’ Victoria’s Secret hauls on YouTube, but had never actually clicked on a video,” she wrote.
She began looking around with a friend in the store and explained that she is never phased or upset about the lack of her size in these types of shops.
”Stores like this don’t intimidate me. Walking around this store is the same as walking around the next. I didn’t feel uncomfortable by the lack of XL’s, nor by the 5 X-Smalls, 4 Smalls, 2 Medium, 1 Large and 0 X-Large ratio that seemed to be a common theme on the rails around the store,” she explained.
When Abbie spotted a pair of pink lacy shorts she liked, she noticed that L was the biggest size they had.
She was then approached by the sales assistant who Abbie described as ”a very important looking and tall lady”
”[She] walked straight past my friend and stood a metre or two away from me.
“I turned around with the large lacy, pink, baggy, elasticated bed shorts in hand, and went to head for my friend to show her my ‘might-fit-me-might-be-tight-but-worth-it’ bed shorts, when..
“‘Hi.. Are you aware of the sizing in this store?’.”
Abbie, who is 20, said that she put the shorts back on the shelf after standing there ‘in silence for about 10 seconds’.
”Why was I questioned? My friend wasn’t questioned, and we were basically the only two in the store at that time, bar one or two others,” she asked in the letter.
She added that thankfully she was strong enough to handle it.
”It was only once I had gotten home and replayed the happenings in my head that I realised, had she have said that to someone weaker, or someone who couldn’t take it, or someone who genuinely went into VS to buy something to make them feel special, things could have been different.”
After Abbie left ‘with her tail between her legs’ she went on to spend €100 in Ann Summers, who’s staff were ‘so lovely and kind’.
”They were helpful and informative and actually did what they could to help. They made me feel comfortable.”
She finishes the letter by restating what was said to her.
”I don’t actually know what the sales assistant meant by her comment, but surely there’s no two ways about it. I can’t even imagine another sentence that she could have tried to say.”
Victoria’s Secret apologised to Abbie in the comments of her open letter asking to speak with her further on the matter.
You can read the full letter here.
