So I just saw these new tees that Abercrombie & Fitch have released...
Remind me never to become "an A&F girl", yeah?
But, I suppose it's a step in the right direction that they've swapped racism for banality? Right? Remember these?
And then of course there were these great tees: "Gentlemen Prefer Tig Old Bitties," "With These, Who Needs Brains?," "Blondes Are Adored, Brunettes Are Ignored," "I Had A Nightmare I Was A Brunette," "Do I Make You Look Fat" and "No Money, No Car, No Chance". Brilliant.
I'm not particularly offended by their tees (although perhaps I should be? Being a natural brunette and not a DD..! ;])- I just find them to be trite. What offends me most about Abercrombie, and their child company Hollister, is their shops...
It's so dark! I just spend my whole time wondering if I'm going to trip over a misplaced flip-flop. I get it... The darkened stores mean lighting is focused on the products, creating a sweet shop effect, la la la...
But if it's not the lighting, it's the music! It's like a nightclub in there! The music is so loud! Oh, again, I get the psychology behind it- the continuous high-energy environment helps to elevate the heart rate, keeping the audience in a heightened state of emotion, which translates into participation, i.e. buying, blah blah blah..
Am I getting old? Don't care.
Then there's the staff. Yeah, alright, so I'm not COMPLETELY adverse to a topless Abercrombie "model" (sue me)... But they are literally the worst employers, so I actually feel really sorry for all their (ridiculously hot) employees.
Here's the man himself:
Mike Jefferies, CEO.
Yes, that's his actual face! Well, actually, some credit must be given to
He's 61. Serious. And he says “dude” a lot. When asked why he dyes his hair blonde he said “Dude, I’m not an old fart who wears his jeans up at his shoulders.” Got it, dude?
He's the one who decided they were only going to employ attractive staff.
"In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids," said Jeffries. "Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong in our clothes, and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."
"We hire good-looking people in our stores because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that."
It is pretty bad...
An ex Abercrombie employee spoke out recently saying that there is a "style guide" that the hiring managers use. It contains full-sized color photographs of different ethnicities- a male and a female for each, which serve as examples of the kind of people they should hire. Presumably so the managers will know what good-looking minorities look like..! Apparently they're amongst the confidential files that are never meant to leave the office.
Then there was the anorexic sufferer, who a week before she was hospilatised for being more than 40 pounds underweight was begged in an Abercrombie store to apply because she had "exactly their look".
I mean, their lawsuits are common knowledge. Once they refused to let a woman help her autistic sister try on clothes because she wasn't the "look of the company", for which they were fined $115,264, and they banished an employee with a prosthetic arm from the store floor. That employee, Riam Dean, was awarded £8,000 for unlawful harassment.
There's loads if you look into it.
So, it's no wonder that Abercrombie made the top of the Corporate Responsibility Magazine's "Black List" for failing to provide information for the Russel Indexes; which investors use to decide whether they should invest in a company or not.
They legally have to provide financial information, but investors also want to know information such as green policies and how a company treats its workers. Abercrombie do not provide this information, which is shadey, because it basically means they are afraid of the data due to poor performance.
I feel bad for the staff, but it doesn't really bother me because I don't shop there. It wouldn't be an effort for me to boycott them. No one who really cares about fashion shops there. I know a few people who shop at Hollister, but I often wonder why? It's aimed at 14-18 year olds? Then I remember that it's at a lower price-point, so it's basically just a poor man's Abercrombie.
Can't we all just get over the preppy American college look now? Please?
Oh, everyone except Mike Jeffries, of course! I quite enjoy his "Abercrombie model" 61-year-old caricature face!
(Friends who shop at A&F or Hollister, please do not be offended)
L.
