Huge garments appear beside Tower Bridge exposing the hidden realities of girlhood

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©Tara Darby

A giant washing line of clothes suspended by Tower Bridge appeared on the Thames today as part of a striking public art installation highlighting the hidden pressures and inequalities many girls face growing up.

Created by artist Annie Frost Nicholson for girls’ rights charity Plan International UK, the installation features oversized clothing hanging from a monumental washing line above the river. Each garment symbolises the inequalities stitched into girls' lives.

The clothesline forms part of Plan International UK’s new campaign, The Fine Print, which explores the hidden inequalities girls encounter growing up.

It accompanies the charity's new research which found that one in five girls say they first experienced unwanted physical or sexual harassment before age 12, and nearly two-thirds of parents (64%) are concerned about raising a daughter in today’s climate.

Artist Annie Frost Nicholson said: “By enlarging everyday garments to this scale, I wanted the weight of those expectations to feel impossible to overlook.

Clothing is something so ordinary, but it carries so much meaning. I wanted to take those layers and make them physically unavoidable in a public space.

“The statistics and our lived experience both tell us that we have a long way to go to feel both equal and safe growing up female. I have been so proud to make this work and contribute to this urgent campaign.”

A large care label attached to the installation reads: Item: Girlhood. Material: 100% potential. Warning: Made with hidden terms & conditions.

Rose Caldwell, CEO at Plan International UK, said: “Girls are growing up under pressures and expectations they never agreed to, and those conditions shape everything - how safe they feel, what they believe is possible for them, and the choices they think they are allowed to make. This installation brings those invisible pressures into public view in a way that is impossible to ignore.

“At the current pace, too many girls will not see gender equality in their lifetime. But these conditions are not fixed - they are created, and they can be changed.”

The new research findings highlight the vast majority (87%) of girls and young women in the UK aged 16-24 have received unwanted comments about their appearance, such as catcalling and intrusive remarks. As a result, many young women say they are adapting their behaviour, with nearly three in five (58%) saying they change how they dress in order to feel safe when they are out in public.

Girls surveyed also cited the ‘unwritten rules’ they are being expected to accept - including being polite or likable to avoid conflict (54%), being more mature than boys (52%) and accepting unwanted comments or behaviour as ‘normal’ (46%).

Ealaf, 17, member of Plan International’s Youth Advisory Panel, said: “I first was followed by a boy at the age of 10. And because he was one of my peers it wasn’t taken very seriously unfortunately. I honestly can’t remember a time where I did not experience unwanted comments about my appearance, which is really disheartening to look back on my experiences, especially at institutions like school.

“I study ‘Women in Literature’ for my A-Level topic and a lot of the themes that come up from texts from over 200 years ago aren’t too dissimilar from what I experience or see today!

“The rise of far-right and anti-female rhetoric has actually begun to scare me in terms of the accomplishment for gender equality. It is really disheartening to see when so much work has been put into achieving so many of the freedoms we as women have begun to achieve today.”

To find out more about the campaign and how we can change the conditions girls are born into, visit: http://plan-uk.org/thefineprint

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Notes to editors:

• Opinium Research ran a nationally representative survey of 1,000 females in the UK aged 16-24 between 3rd and 10th April 2026.
• Opinium Research also ran a nationally representative survey of 1,114 UK parents of under 18s between 3rd and 10th April 2026.