🠈  Abercrombie & Fitch  🠊

Abercrombie & Fitch

Abercrombie & Fitch is a mall based retailer providing designer clothes targeting young adults. The site Abercrombie Kids provides clothes for kids and teens. The company created the Hollister chain of stores in 2000. These store have a lower price point. They are designed to evoke images a beaches.

History

The name "Abercrombie and Fitch" was trademarked in 1892 and used by a company that sold upper end outdoor gear. This company gained fame as the outfitter for Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemmingway. It was popular with rich businessmen seeking adventure.

This first company went bankrupt in 1976 and closed it last store in 1977. A company called Oshman's Sporting Goods bought the company's trademark and mailing list in 1978.

In 1988, Oshman's sold the trademark to The Limited. The Limited, which owned Victoria's Secret, developed Abercrombie & Fitch as a sexy brand that would use provocative ads to sell expensive clothes to the popular kids at the mall.

The Limited sold its stake in a successful IPO in 1998. The company trades on the NYSE with the symbol ANF.

Controversies

Conservative Groups routinely condemned the marketing and claimed that many of the catalogs crossed the line from "edgy" to "pornography." CNN reports that the 2003 catalog (distributed to minors) included nude models in provocative poses with articles on sex.

The company was good at playing conservative reactions to make the store look edgy and cool.

The company eventually fell out of graces with the left as well. The store wanted only sexy employees and routinely discriminated against minorities and the overweight. The site AF Justice has a class action against Abercombie & Fitch.

The company refused to donate excess clothing to homeless shelters stating that they would prefer to burn clothes than seeing their brand on homeless people.

As derogatory statements came from the corporate, Fashionistas began dismissing Abercombie and Fitch as the mall based brand for wannabes and posers.

While the upset conservatives improved sales, the bad press from the fashionistas actually hurt profits. The company eventually ousted its CEO Mike Jeffries in 2014. The company has since cut back on the provocative advertising.

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References:

  1. Wikipedia - Abercombie & Fitch (Drawn 12/8/2017)

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