A Kansas mom was shocked and outraged after a sales woman at a Dillard's department store told her 13-year-old daughter that she “needed Spanx.” As a result, the mom took to Facebook to post a powerful open letter.
Megan Harris took her daughter Lexi shopping for a dress for an upcoming dance. While the teen girl found the perfect outfit right away, her mom encouraged her to try on a few others just for fun.
Harris then picked out a red, floor-length dress with a jeweled collar for Lexi. While they both thought the dress was beautiful, they agreed it wasn’t Lexi’s style. It was then that a sales associate cut in and “suggested that the dress was not very flattering to her.”
Recalling the incident, Harris told KAKE News: “I don't want to say exactly what she said because it was extremely unkind. But, she said, she needed to wear Spanx.”
Harris and her daughter then quickly left the store. After trying to reach out to Dillard’s with no luck, Harris got her daughter’s permission to share the story on social media.
In a powerful open letter to the sales associate, the mom wrote on Facebook: “I wish I had told you how many girls suffer from poor self image and telling them they need something to make them perfect can be very damaging. Girls of all ages, shapes and sizes are perfect because that is how God made them. If they feel good in a dress, that is all that should matter.”
Harris went on to say that her daughter is an active and athletic girl. “My daughter is tall, she swims, runs, dances and does yoga. She’s fit. She’s beautiful. She did not need you telling her that she is not perfect.
“I hope this is shared and gets back to you so that you should not say something like that to a girl ever again.”
Harris’ post struck a chord with people everywhere and quickly went viral. In one week, the post garnered over 73,000 shares.
In the comments, many applauded the mom and her teen for how well they handled the situation. “Lucky for you, you have a very smart girl who knows people like that are just wrong,” one wrote. “The dress looks great on her and she looks happy in it.”
Since the incident, Dillard’s has reached out to Harris and her daughter. According to the mom, the store’s representatives were “very nice” and “they said they were going to use [the incident] as a talking point for their salespeople.”
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