Aberzombie to close 50 stores

It's taken a long time, but the 90s are finally dying.

http%3A//www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8028d9f6-7d07-11e2-8bd7-00144feabdc0.html%23axzz2LlL4AIg9



• I've never bought one thing from this shitty store, even when I was in high school in the 90's. Good riddance. They should focus the European market, where Europeans actually think they're being "hip and American" when they wear their shit.

• What will that monstrous freak Mike Jeffries do next?

  http://www.dispatch.com/content/graphics/2010/04/14/abercrombie-aircraft-art-g6786e2g-1michael-jeffries.jpg

• I have one shirt from A&F, bought in 1998 in Las Vegas. I don't wear it anymore but it's held up well. Looks more Eddie Bauer than A&F, though, and is nothing like the stuff they've sold there the last 10-15 years.

• They want money to read your link, OP. Provide another! Do it!

• Do they still play that shitty techno music in their stores? Or am I thinking of another similar shitty store?

• I'm a 71 year old fag and I find A&F so dated and annoyingly dark. They're still selling lesbian ware from the 50's. The quality is pretty crude too. A&F must have been the model for Old Navy, so why spend the extra money for those depressing initials.

• Barney Jopson, the reporter of that article, is a cute Brit. He's on TV now and again. Who's had him?

  http://img.youtube.com/vi/5vjFpLbRF6k/0.jpg

• [quote] They should focus the European market, where Europeans actually think they're being "hip and American" when they wear their shit. It's always surprising to spot A&F shirts on 30-something men in Europe who would otherwise pass as reasonably aware sorts. In the U.S., I rarely see anything A&F at all; the few exceptions are either very young (and don't buy their own clothes), or hicks who don't know better.

• They try to sell a sort of "college-age" look, but none of the college students around here would be caught dead in their crap. They all dress like hipsters or hippies.

  Living in a college town

• The problem is quality. just like Banana Republic, the quality has gone done significantly. AF has really shitty clothing now. It wasn't always that way. Everything is now outsourced to China or India or Indonesia or wherever. Everything is so cheaply made. I bought this coat from Banana Republic about 12 years ago and you can not find that kind of quality for the price I paid over a decade ago. If you want the same quality, you have to pay more. I haven't found anything of quality or worth buying at BR anymore.

• I didn't even wear A&F in the 90s, when I was in college. I never cared for it.

• r6, I'm sorry, but the opinion of a 71y/o man about AF is such a throwaway. I don't care what a 7 decade old man thinks of fashion.

• My sister explained Abercrombie from her children's standpoint: Middle school: American Eagle Early High School: Abercrombie 11th Grade and Above: Anything NOT Abercrombie, AE or Aeropostle My 17 year old niece works at Aeropostle and she won't wear a thread from the store.

• If that freak CEO still running A&F? He's really scary looking.

• r9, at my school, no one will have anything to do with hipster crap. Well, maybe not "no one," but only a very few wear it.

• When A&F first blew up in the late 90s I was college age and the quality was much better---I still have some t-shirts and sweats that have held up over the years. Not only did their quality go down but at some point years ago they made the shortsighted and inexplicable decision to brand every single item they made without exception with a big A&F logo. They made nice casual basics but not everyone wants to be a walking billboard for a brand, especially as one gets into their twenties and up, so they alienated all their former customers like myself who might've stuck with the brand. Now I only buy Hollister--just kidding!

• Love or hate, they had a good run. It was bound to end eventually.

• Hahha. Every fag and their pathetic boyfriend wanted to work there and own every piece of clothing from that store between 1999 and 2005. It's kind of ironic now that they're practically going out of business.

• I'm surprised it has taken this long since I don't know who wears their clothes. My 22 year-old nephew wore Abercrombie for about 6 months in junior high school then decided he wouldn't be caught dead in it - and that was fine with me because I was tired of shopping for him in pitch dark stores with my ears bleeding from overty loud, pounding music. It was a painful shopping experience and it's no wonder the help was sullen with enormous attitudes. He moved on to Polo in high school then Southern Tide and Vinyard Vines in college, which are well-made and timeless - and a pleasure to buy.

• But it didn't have to be this way. I don't understand why quality has gone down. We're all paying more to get the same quality we had in the '90s. I'm sounding dramatic, but what has happened to America? Some of my favorite stores I don't recognize anymore. Everything look so cheap and quality even cheaper. I, too, have a sweatshirts and shirts from A&F from high school/college and they're still much in use. The last time I went to A&F, the t-shirts were so thin and poorly made. As for Banana Republic, I may as well have gone to Old Navy but I can't tell the difference in quality anymore.

• [quote]My 17 year old niece works at Aeropostle and she won't wear a thread from the store. What's sad is I know a 41 year old gay man who thinks he's being hip and cool wearing Aeropostle (he also wears those cheesy Nike t-shirts from the 90's with the big check mark on the front). I cringe everytime I see him wear that shit.

• so r21.... your friend takes being "hip and cool" only mildly seriously - so mild that he's missed changes. For you, on the other hand, it is deathly serious. I'd rather know your friend.

• [quote] I don't understand why quality has gone down. We're all paying more to get the same quality we had in the '90s. I'm sounding dramatic, but what has happened to America? Some of my favorite stores I don't recognize anymore. Everything look so cheap and quality even cheaper. Almost everything is owned by Bain Capital and similar corporate raiders. They long ago finished skimming everything they could to provide eight figure annual bonuses to corporate boards, so now they simply gut. All consumer products are now manufactured as cheaply as they can be without (most of them) actually falling apart before they reach the stores. If a company is not actually owned by a raider, it's being prepped by its board to be purchased by one, thereby providing said CEO with an eight or nine figure payout. None of that leaves any resources to put quality materials or workmanship into any product.