Is the new designer Minnie Mouse too skinny?

Posted: 10.24.2012 at 4:17 AM

A skinny Minnie Mouse is under fire.

Now upscale retailer Barney's New York is taking the heat.

The ad features a dreaming Minnie with a figure no one could have, unless they ate like a mouse.

A petition on www.change.org is entitled: Barney's, leave Minnie alone.

Via New York Daily News:

"We are saddened that activists have repeatedly tried to distort a lighthearted holiday project in order to draw media attention to themselves," Disney and Barneys said in a joint statement to the News.

"They have deliberately ignored previously released information clearly stating this promotion is a three-minute ‘moving art’ video featuring traditional Minnie Mouse in a dreamlike sequence set in Paris where she briefly walks the runway as a model and then happily awakens as her normal self wearing the very same designer dress from the fashion show."

Disney and Barneys say the controversy is blown out of proportion.

They point out Minnie wakes up in her traditional shape - wearing the same dress.

For her Madison Avenue holiday debut, Minnie swaps her trademark polka dots for a ruffled Lavin mini dress paired with opera gloves and stilettos, complete with a teeny tiny waist and toothpick-thin legs. She'll be joined by designer clad Mickey, Goofy, Daisy, Cruella, Princess Tiana and Snow White, who are all making their incredibly shrinking debut as part of the store's much-anticipated window display, which will be unveiled on Nov. 14.

The decision to drastically alter Minnie's body resulted from a meeting of Barneys and Disney bigwigs.

"When we go to the moment when all Disney characters would walk on the runway, there was a discussion," Barneys creative director Dennis Freedman, told Women's Wear Daily. "The standard Minnie Mouse will not look so good in a Lanvin dress. There was a moment of silence, because these characters don't change. I said, 'If we're going to make this work, we have to have a 5-foot-11 Minnie,' and they agreed. When you see Goofy, Minnie and Mickey, they are runway models."

We're asking Facebook fans this morning if Barney's is out of line with these new Disney characters? Are they projecting poor body image for children? Chime in now!