Abercrombie and Fitch (Finally!) Losing Its Cachet

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:28:00 GMT

Even recessions have a silver lining. Overpriced and oversexed teen clothier Abercrombie and Fitch is feeling the pinch in a big way as teenagers (or their parents) wise up to the fact that it’s just not worth it to pay $58 for a scarf—even if an impossibly dreamy, half-naked hunk is plastered over the cash register.

According to MSNBC, “The company is fiercely protecting its image as a ‘premium’ brand, and, as a result, it's getting snubbed big time by its once cultlike, ever-loyal fan base.” It’s ironic that “premium” means ripped jeans and flannel shirts, but, as Abercrombie sadly found out, if you put enough naked teenagers next to any product, it’ll sell.

That is, until hardly anyone can afford to buy it anymore. Abercrombie was the biggest retail loser in March, posting a 34 percent drop in sales. I wonder how those numbers compare to the drop in teenagers’ self-esteem after looking at an Abercrombie catalogue.

In case you haven’t recently had the joy of getting assaulted by club music and cheap cologne in your local Abercrombie lately, Jezebel has an anecdote to remind you just how abominable the king of preppy is. Writer Hortense remembers sharing in a hospital with a young woman who was being treated for anorexia. She had to be tube-fed around the clock. “The week before she was hospitalized,” Hortense writes, “she told me, she went to buy clothes at Abercrombie & Fitch, and the manager pestered her the entire time, begging her to apply for a job there, because she had ‘the look they wanted.’”

Perhaps the manager was so pushy because of the high employee turnover.

Photo: abercrombieandfitch.com

Sex Sells—Even for 10-Year-Olds

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:05:00 GMT

Do you also feel like a small part of you dies every time you’re forced to walk by an Abercrombie and Fitch clothing store, with its knock-off techno music blasting and its gaggle of white, blonde salesclerks that look exactly like the teen and preteen models posing half-naked in the company's ads? (This resemblance, by the way, is slyly crafted: Abercrombie encourages aspiring models to first work retail in their stores.) If so, prepare to be slightly nauseated: a children’s hospital in Columbus, Ohio has agreed to name its new emergency and trauma center Abercrombie and Fitch in exchange for a $10 million donation from the company.

It was bad enough back in the 90s when one of the Boston area’s premiere music venues, evocatively named Great Woods, became the Tweeter Center. But naming a stadium after a corporation—depressing as it is—is nothing compared to naming a wing of a children’s hospital after one of the worst marketing predators for kids. Just what, pray tell, does the above image have to do with clothing?

Perhaps I’m being uptight—I’m sure plenty of mature, celibate teenagers shop at Abercrombie—but how many parents out there would like their 10-year-old to own a thong emblazoned with the words “eye candy”? That’s only one example of numerous marketing techniques that have gotten Abercrombie in trouble with children’s advocates over the years; it has also been successfully sued for promoting a white-only image.

So, not surprisingly, a coalition of children’s advocates, including pediatricians and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, have organized to pressure the Columbus Children’s Hospital to reconsider its chumminess with Abercrombie. Happy as I am to support their campaign, I have to be a realist: $10 million or a bunch of righteously indignant nonprofits? I’m gonna bet the CEO of the hospital goes with the money. All that’s left for us to little people to do is to avoid the store like the plague—not that that’s so difficult….

Photo: Abercrombie.com

Strollerderby : abercrombie and fitch

Abercrombie and Fitch (Finally!) Losing Its Cachet

Sex Sells—Even for 10-Year-Olds