Connie Primmer: Twitter 1 Topman 0

The offending items from Topman featured slogans which many perceived to be at best sexist and at worst, promoting domestic violence.

One read “Nice new girlfriend - what breed is she?” (in a disgusting colour as well), while the other featured a list of reasons for bad behaviour which many took to be justifications for domestic violence.

My initial reaction, egged on by the furious tweeters, was pure feminist fury and I began angrily retweeting such gems from equally outraged men and women such as ‘Topman - first choice on the high street for the fashion conscious domestically violent man...”

Although the t-shirt didn’t explicitly refer to domestic violence, the fact that most people immediately thought that was what it was about was bad enough. I wonder what the designer was thinking, writing things like ‘you provoked me’ ‘I was drunk’ and ‘I hate you’, it’s fairly clear what they are alluding to.

Topman is pretty sad thinking that even touching on the serious subject of domestic violence in a ‘funny’ or ‘light-hearted’ way would ever be ok.

Charging ridiculous amounts of money for plain, poor quality t-shirts and vests was bad enough but this desperation to be cool and edgy has just sunk to new levels.

The vile t-shirt saying ‘what breed is she’ is so stupid and nonsensical it’s hardly worth noting. Maybe I’m not ‘cool’ enough to get the joke, but humans don’t come in breeds, so are you saying your new girlfriend is an animal? Is Topman promoting bestiality? Whose new girlfriend is it? The person wearing the t-shirt? Or anyone who has the misfortune of walking past the idiot wearing it in the street and reading it?

The statement Topman published on their Facebook page made the whole sorry situation even worse:

“We have received some negative feedback regarding two of our printed T-shirts” (Understatement of the decade)

“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.”

My original outrage was beginning to diminish by the time Topman had published their statement but reading it insulted me all over again.

“Meant to be light-hearted and carried no serious meaning” is possibly the worst thing to say, how can slogans comparing women to dogs and excusing domestic violence ever be light-hearted? Domestic violence is serious whether you want it to be or not. Pathetic excuse from the PR team.

Another tweeter said: “‘These comments were meant to be light-hearted’ Women are animals, and hitting them’s brilliant. YAY! LADS!”

As for ‘those who may have been offended by these designs’ - how incredibly patronising. I felt they were trying to insinuate that me being offended was some kind of PC Brigade overreaction and they were just patting me on the head telling me to ‘calm down dear’ à la Mr Cameron.

Even worse were the morons commenting on the post arguing ‘if you don’t like the t-shirts, don’t buy them’ and ‘it’s only a joke’ etc.

Shows what kind of customers Topman has; idiots flouncing around in their skinny jeans thinking they are really unique and alternative despite the fact they shop at one of the UK’s biggest retailers and are buying exactly the same ‘quirky’ items as the rest of us normal ‘mainstream’ people, who have somehow come to the conclusion that defending t-shirts which compare women to dogs is a good idea.

Fortunately, before my rage reached throwing-computer-out-of-window heights, I stumbled upon this little gem, a t-shirt someone had created in response to the furore which read: “I’m so sorry but...This t-shirt is highly popular with T***s , we wish Twitter didn’t exist, Our PR company are having the worst day EVER, please leave us alone” which made me laugh.

Then I remembered the David and Goliath clothes and accessories which were so popular among me and my friends when we were 14, which featured slogans like ‘Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them’ , accompanied by a drawing in case you needed guidance on how exactly to go about this, ‘dogs make better boyfriends’ and ‘stupid factory - where boys are made’.

There was an outcry against these too in 2003, led by radio-host Glenn Sacks, but this was in the days before Twitter.

‘Boys are stupid. throw rocks at them’ is such a childish statement that it’s clearly a joke, and in fact on the David & Goliath website it says : “David & Goliath creates stupid apparel and funny tees for women, humorous men’s tees and silly kids apparel.”

The Topman website says: “The only destination for the best in mens fashion.”

Is insulting women the best in mens fashion nowadays then? If that’s the case I’d prefer a very ‘unfashionable’, real man.

I can see why some people thought the Twitter rage was an overreaction, but it’s worrying that the designs were approved by so many people at Topman and allowed to go on sale at all.

Domestic violence against males, although not as common, is a serious issue too, and the offence these t-shirts caused isn’t limited to women.

Maybe everyone did get a bit carried away yesterday.

Today Topman just look a bit sad and ignorant.

The silver lining is that these kind of t-shirts act as a warning to women that a chauvinistic idiot lies beneath it. Just as I doubt many men would be interested in a girl wearing a ‘Dogs make better boyfriends’ top, there’s not a self-respecting woman on earth who would date any of the creeps that would wear these Topman t-shirts. So for helping us to identify these sad ‘men’, Topman, thank you.