Primark introduces women-only fitting rooms
Primark has announced it will now offer a dedicated fitting room area for women, as well as continuing to offer a combined fitting room area which everyone can use.
The retailer made changes to its fitting room policy following complaints regarding inappropriate behaviour from two men walking in on a customer as she was changing.
187 of the brand's 191 stores in the UK will offer a dedicated women's fitting room area and a combined fitting room area. For the four stores that only have one changing room area, Primark has said it is exploring other options.
In addition, Primark is making its cubicles "more secure" by introducing longer curtains and a new mechanism to hold the curtains firmly in place. It will also be refreshing its colleague training to ensure that its teams have "everything they need" to manage the fitting rooms in Primark's stores and support customers.
The policy change comes after a TikTok video was posted by Charlotte Kirby, who said that two men pulled back the curtain in separate incidents while she was trying on clothes at Primark's Cambridge store.
In the video, Kirby said she “loves” the idea of gender-neutral changing rooms because it makes everyone feel included.
“But twice men opened the curtain and walked in on me. Luckily, both times I was wearing clothes but I could easily not have been,” she said.
In a statement, Primark said: "We want our stores to be places where everyone feels safe and welcome. We’re sorry to hear this hasn’t been the experience some people have reported in our fitting rooms.
"We’ve listened to feedback from our customers and colleagues and you’ll start to see changes in our UK stores in the coming weeks. We’ll be monitoring these changes closely and continuing to listen to our customers and colleagues."
