Shopping centres ban MIRRORS from their changing rooms…awks

Jul 21, 2016

If you’ve ever been in a changing room with dodgy lighting or a bad mirror, you’ll know it’s nearly impossible to get a proper look at what you’re wearing. So can you imagine what it would be like if the dreaded dressing room contained no mirrors at all?

A selection of UK shopping centres have decided to ban mirrors from their changing rooms as part of a random attempt to increase the body confidence levels of their shoppers.

According to Marie Claire, stores in Birmingham, Bristol and Croydon were inspired to enforce a mirror ban because a “bikini season” survey found that 71 percent of British women don’t feeling confident buying a new outfit once they’ve had a look at themselves in the changing room mirror.

Additionally, 22 percent of the women surveyed admitted they would rather get a friend or family member’s opinion on a look than to rely on their own reflection.

Not only was this week-long campaign bound to be a major inconvenience to anyone who actually shops to buy clothes, it was also a bit sexist as the mirror hiding plan only applied to the centres' female changing rooms because, as you know, men couldn’t possibly suffer from body image issues.

According to The Sun, the regional marketing manager of the malls involved said: “We want to ensure that everyone feels comfortable and confident when trying on clothes, so that’s why we’re trialling banning the mirrors.”

“We hope that women in particular will try something on and feel gorgeous and glamorous. Hopefully this will be a success and we can roll it out across our shopping centres for the summer.”