‘White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch’ - Documentary Trailer is HERE!

Um, aren't most fashion brands built on the cachet of being "unique" or "exclusive"? How is this documentary a revelation?

R1 no. They don’t usually build a brand that is exclusively for young, super hot white people only.

Will the face of Mike Jeffries finally be explained?

r2, what alternate history did you live through?

I wonder what kind of idiot would watch those bloated and not at all revelatory Netflix documentaries. Then I come to Datalounge and find out.

R4 what other clothing company deliberately and blatantly said their clothing is for teens into early 20s fit whites only past the year 1980?

R5 the Op is the retarded Brooklyn Seacow Ed.win Mont.anez Jr. that looks like a bald headed gaptoothed puerto rican Jabba the with super jiggly titties. There is your answer!

R6 Plenty of preppy brands existed through the 1990s and 2000s - Lacoste, J. Crew, etc. Are you 15?

r6, r8 is correct. Were you alive in the 80s and 90s? MANY fashion brands tied their "exclusivity" to young, white people. I'm not saying it was the correct thing to do, I'm saying A&F were not the only ones doing it.

J Crew used black models as well as white models and, while young, they had plus sizes. Abercrombie’s largest mens jeans size was 34 until a few years ago.

[quote]J Crew used black models as well as white models and, while young, they had plus sizes. Abercrombie’s largest mens jeans size was 34 until a few years ago.

Plus, I think J Crew at least targeted people who were in their 30's....

I agree other brands largely focused on young, white customers, but A&F was a bit more blatant and more restrictive than the rest. There is a reason why Mad TV chose them to parody them. When I was in college A&F was more focused on an older audience -- men who had money and were probably in their 30's and 40's with expensive sweaters and yuppie/preppy look. A few years later they had reinvented themselves with a younger, more casual look and became the hot store of young early-twentysomethings.

Girls, girls, let's stop fighting over A&F's blatant racism and stroll down memory lane!

People aren’t understanding what made Abercrombie different than the others, and that’s not a surprise to me at all because most of the people on here PRETEND to be smart, but in reality aren’t all that smart at all.

All clothing companies in the 00s and prior used young hot people to sell their products, unless they intentionally were trying to get older buyers or using celebs. That’s not new. And most ads used mostly white people but they mostly all used POC here and there also, even going back to the 60s and 70s. Even Tommy Hilfiger, who bluntly stated his clothing was meant for white people always used black people for ads.

Abercrombie only used white for years, and not the “white” that we see now like Mexicans we claim are white, but WHITE. And those other brands made clothing for people who were heavier, Abercrombie didn’t. They were truly discriminatory.

J Crew may not have used a fatty to promote their clothes in ads but they still made some clothes for the fattys. Abercrombie didn’t, and not even for fats, all their clothing was for rail thin.

R11 yes, if you looked at a J Crew ad book in the 90s they had some models in their 30s/40s modeling their Golf style polos and khakis etc. too. They also would throw a black person or two in the mix.

A&F was very blatant in their approach and it eventually backfired.

Didn't A&F also have reputation for being discriminatory of who could work in their stores?

R15 Yes, you had to look like a model out of the preppy handbook. Similar hiring practices to Hooters. They're a private business, I don't understand why this is/was such a big deal. Just don't buy their shit!

R15 yup. You had to look like the people in their catalogues. No lie. They hired based on what you looked like. Even to work Backroom you need to be young, good looking with a great body for if they need you (males) to go shirtless.

R16 people did stop buying their shit. That’s why they fell hard and had no choice but to rebrand themselves to stay afloat.

R11 I caught a rerun of The Nanny a few years ago where Fran asks CC if her safari outfit is Banana Republic. CC haughtily replies, "No Abercrombie & Fitch," the joke being that A&F is the "classy" label. That episode couldn't have been more than 4-5 years before the "young and casual" rebrand.

R15 You had to be super-skinny. My sister, who would later be hospitalized for anorexia, worked there in college.

R19 the rebrand happened in 1992. She didn’t say that because they were the classier one, it’s because they were the cooler one.

I can remember when they ONLY made safari outfits!

I wonder if that is why Netflix is doing this documentary, because this year makes 30 years since Mike Jeffries took over A&F and rebranded it. By 1999 they were one of the top retailers in the world for teens and young adults.

You have to admire the creativity of a company that used images of naked people to sell clothes. Talk about thinking outside the box!

“Mike Jeffries took over as CEO of the company from Sally Frame-Kasaks in 1992. He turned his attention to cornering the teen retail market, making it the A&F brand's mission statement.

To capture consumers' attention, Jeffries created ad campaigns with provocative images and barely clothed models.

Photographer Bruce Weber was hired to take the racy photos in a bid to rebrand A&F into a conversation piece.“

This is what male workers at Abercrombie looked like. Ridiculous if you really think about it. And the girls all very pretty, white, and very thin. I always assumed those girls were forced into eating disorders.

I remember one catalogue I received when I was in high school in the late 90’s. The back inside cover had a girl riding on an elephant and the girl was topless. Tits out. And she may have been naked on the bottom, I don’t know, but I remember thinking, “what clothes are they selling here, she’s not wearing anything!” It was all about the hot models.

The Abercrombie store in my local mall was really dark- I had a hard time seeing the tags on the clothes. And the perfume was thick in that store. I wasn’t a big fan.

Historically, it sold attire for hunting, fishing, safaris. I got my cordovan loafers there.It was the epitome of stuffiness and pseudo-Britishness. The rebrand was startling.

A&F opened in Manhattan in 1892. 100 years later they were rebranded.

Were they the first Woke block/delete/ghost/cancel of the 21st Century?

Shoes for nerds.

I was hoping my catalog collection would fund my retirement.

This is the definitive documentary.

My father was a hunter and I was familiar with A&F from him getting hunting gear through them in the 70s. The other way I knew about them was through the biography Edie, about Edie Sedgwick and her famous image arabesquising on top of an extravagant leather rhino that was from A&F, and that how I knew there were trappings of it being a very upper class kind of thing. But nothing prepared me the first time I walked into there shop, circa 1990, in South Street Seaport and saw all the clothes for young adults, it was a radical transformation. Throughout the 90s the magazine, which maybe came out quarterly, was a big collectors items amongst the Gays. At first it was free, then it was by paid subscription.

This is the image as it appeared in Vogue.

They didn’t hire POC at all until after 2004. Fucking ridiculous.

“According to the San Francisco Chronicle, in 2002, the brand received public backlash from Asian Americans for images on T-shirts that depicted Asian stereotypes. According to Bloomberg, in response, the company removed the products from their shelves.

A year later, a class-action suit was filed against the company for alleged discrimination against African Americans, Asian Americans, and other minority applicants. It was reported that A&F managers were ordered to deny that a store was hiring if applicants didn't fit a certain look.

The company settled the lawsuit in 2004 without admitting any wrongdoing, according to Bloomberg. It paid out $40 million and changed its hiring guidelines.”

Found it. I was shocked when I saw this in the catalog. Shocked!

I would’ve much rather had the issue with this photo:

A&F Shopping Bags were highly prized in some circles. They were also controversial as they featured images from their calendars of buff young men with their pants' top buttons undone.

Hot.

We had a A & F store right outside my office building . My office was on the third floor so when the shirtless models would loiter in the doorway my office had birdseye view. All the girls and gay guys would find an excuse to pop in to "discuss issues." with me but would spend the entire meeting staring over my shoulder out the window. I'd get revenge on the closet cases by drawing the blinds. You could see the frustration in their faces. Once came back early from lunch and caught one actually taking a photo out the window. Good times.

pre Tik Tok Call Me A & E

Love the Hole song in the trailer!

Channing Tatum for A & F

19 yo Ashton Krutcher for A & F

Trevor Donovan-Yanni for A & F

I liked the bisexual storyline with Chris Carmack that was woven through the Fall 2000? issue. I had it along with a lot of their other early 2000s catalogs until a few years ago when I dumped everything. Probably could have sold them on eBay. A&F did get lame for a while, but they make some nice stuff now, as long as you avoid the heavily-logoed items.

R7, you inspired me.

Hotties

Wait, how did I not know A&F was a Wexner company, that means it made Jeffery Epstein’s lifestyle possible!!!

[quote] I remember one catalogue I received when I was in high school in the late 90’s. The back inside cover had a girl riding on an elephant and the girl was topless. Tits out. And she may have been naked on the bottom, I don’t know, but I remember thinking, “what clothes are they selling here, she’s not wearing anything!” It was all about the hot models.

A&F created a brand, a lifestyle where pretty people wore their stuff and sometimes didn't, frolicking around nude in cool places with even cooler props. By owning their clothes, you were part of that cool lifestyle. You were (supposedly) considered cool when wearing their clothes. Wearing their cool clothes, having pretty cool friends, going to cool places, having a great time.

Bruce Weber was integral to that branding. Versace used him for the same black & white cool vibe for his quarterly magazines. Once Versace died, Michael Jeffries hired Bruce to do the same for A&F, the exact same thing, only the brand of the clothes was different.

Sorry, forgot the link I wanted to add at r51. Bruce Weber for Versace.

Calvin Klein was first to glorify the male torso. Bruce Weber tied into that. Then Klein latched onto Mark Wahlberg in the early 90s…and that brought male torsos to a younger collegiate / high school level…and that’s where A&F entered with a lifestyle brand…taking the brand concept Ralph Lauren created (but making it younger) layered over the youth Hilfiger market (but making it less urban) and focusing into the center of the US (as opposed to the coasts) on a younger and more “classic” American (white corn fed boys).

This also coincided with an enormous, young market segment (Millennials, which we still called Gen Y in the late ‘90s) newly into showing more skin. This generation also had a lot of cash in their pockets. The same kind of Gen Y marketing was going on with tv and movies and music. A&F got huge because of the timing and because of the steamy catalog and because of the buzz about the sometimes-banned catalog. The shirtless guys in the stores was good on a buzzy, grassroots level—local news stations would cover it—but even in those somewhat recent days (20 years ago) mailed catalogs and photographs had a massive impact.

These were not the “cool kids,” however, in my opinion. These were the jocks and the frat boys.

If A&F was racist, does that make FUBU racist too?

Sex Sells.

A&F was in its own league. Don’t compare it to CK.

The only standout memory I have from A&F in the late 90s, was that in the stores I found the superfluous layering over layers, over other layers with larger and baggier layers. I can remember counting 6 shirts on one guy!

In spite of their drapey fit they seemed clownish.

[quote]Even Tommy Hilfiger, who bluntly stated his clothing was meant for white people

R13, this is an urban legend. He did not.

I used to keep the bags

They responded.

I used to jack off to the Abercrombie catalog. I was turned on by how douchie it was.

Comes out Tuesday

[quote]douchie

douchey, or even douche-y

[quote] Didn't A&F also have reputation for being discriminatory of who could work in their stores?

A&F--apparel's Cracker Barrel.

OP is correct Abercrombie is already back in fashion, thank goodness. This is one brand worked hard on their transition from the old CEO, who was tossed over during the Recession, to the new leadership. They also closed select stores and completely revamped the brand to remove the worst aspects. I do miss the hot half naked men all over the place and selective hiring of attractive people, but I'm getting with the times.

I hold on to my of A&F catalogue for dear life. Bruce Webber prints, some nudity (never cocks), glad I bought one of the last ones issued by the store.

r54 FUBU would never not hire a white person for their stores. A&F would for a time.

I threw out my newer A&F catalogues but still have the ones from around 1999-2000.

I remember their 2001 Back To School catalog and thinking it looked like a soft porn mag at times lol

And I say that not only because of the guys showing ass but the women being topless too.

Some shots from the 2001 Summer Issue, different from the 2001 Back To School issue

Impressive review

from the review.

[quote] The models — in the catalogues, on the store posters, on the shopping bags — were mostly men, mostly naked, and all ripped, like the missing link between Michelangelo’s David and “Jersey Shore.”

Missing link between Michelangelo's David and "Jersey Shore". LOL

[quote] The WASP preppy culture that become a new symbol of cool was spearheaded, on the fashion front, by that trilogy of designer-mogul giants, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger. Two of them were Jewish, and so was Bruce Weber, the legendary photographer who created the exclusionary youths-romping-in-nature-with-a-golden-retriever image of Abercrombie’s “Triumph of the Will” meets Chippendale’s aesthetic.

[quote] Were the Abercrombie & Fitch adds homoerotic? Yes and no. Weber, like Calvin Klein, was gay (and so was CEO Mike Jeffries), and on some level the ads were suffused with homoerotic sensation.

Did the review just out Bruce Weber? I don't think he is openly gay.

[quote]Were the Abercrombie & Fitch adds homoerotic?

Wait, the plural of ad is adds? Since when?

I worked at A&F in the Columbus City Center 1989-91 while I was in grad school at Ohio State. Yes, I'm white and I am 6'6" and, at that time, weighed about 220 lbs. Beginning in November, we had to go to a tanning salon once a week (paid for by the store) and, although not written anywhere, we were instructed to work out. We had to wear only A&F clothes while working and we had to buy them. Most of us showed up for work in whatever we had and changed into clothes we took from the stockroom. After work, we just changed back and folded what we had worn and put it back.

The first winter I worked there, the summer season merchandise arrived in February so we had to wear shorts and tank tops. Customers came around in winter clothes, winter coats, and boots and there we were in skimpy clothes in the dead of winter. During the time I worked there, we did not go shirtless.

One of the creepiest parts of working at A&F was the touching. High school girls, forward women, and handsy old men groped and grabbed all the time. The clientele of City Center was predominantly white, especially the stores on the third level where the fancy stores were. I remember selling a cream colored v-neck sweater to a gorgeous black guy once. At the time, I was ignorant about the subversive and pervasive racism of the company. I don't think I ever saw a catalogue until way after I quit, and I worked there before the enormous images of models in their clothes showed up in stores.

Fun fact: City Center was the first – and only – shopping center in which Lex Wexner ran a store of every brand he owned.

R78 the store didn’t revamp to young white models until 1992 ☠️

Nice story though.

I'm glad A&F crashed and burned.

Way too many stories about how it treated minority workers don't sit well with me. A&F stuck them in the back so customers don't interact with them

[quote] You had to look like the people in their catalogues. No lie. They hired based on what you looked like. Even to work Backroom you need to be young, good looking with a great body for if they need you (males) to go shirtless.

and white

Was A&F the one who hired a woman who wore a Muslim hajib to her interview and then fired her specifically because she wore a hajib?

There was a lawsuit about that

After all the criticism, A&F finally did hire some VERY lightskinned black models

R83 that was after being sued more than once.

[quote] A&F created a brand, a lifestyle where pretty people wore their stuff and sometimes didn't, frolicking around nude in cool places with even cooler props.

That's not "a lifestyle." That's a fantasy.

A lot of mall stores are discriminatory in hiring practices. You think Zumies (skate, snowboard, surf & street apparel) or Pacsun are going to hire 50 or 60 year olds to work there? There were also stores (maybe no longer, idk) that catered much more to young black people. There was a store (I forget the name) that sold 'urban' clothes favored by black kids, had all black kids working there, and played only r&b.

[quote]That's not "a lifestyle." That's a fantasy.

Welcome to the wonderful world of marketing. Thank you for finally joining us. Would you like a seat? Perhaps a drink?

Every fashion brand has an aesthetic. And many brands rely on peddling an elitist, exclusionary look.

Abercrombie & Fitch was no different. It simply used the ideal of nordic beauty, rebadged 'All American', and reimagined by gay and jewish artists.

And guess what: the public adored it. Voted with their wallets.

But that opened A&F up to criticism from minorities who wished to join the look and open its aesthetic (or water it down) in a Bridgerton manner.

Getting a bunch of minorities to sound off in front of a camera about how it sucked when A&F pushed back is inherently banal.

They knew what they getting into. They only had to look at the marketing FFS! Don't join a brand with nordic imagery if you're Latino or Black. Go work for Benneton which celebrates diversity! Trouble is, they also LIKED it. And more than that, they wanted to BE it. They should have renamed this documentary Sore Losers.

I don't have the slightest issue with A&F wanting to maintain their brand imagery and 'myth', boring as it was. How many Bruce Weber shots of twenty somethings rolling on the beach, and pretending to be not so very gay, can one sell, until it gets old? Billions.

[quote]Did the review just out Bruce Weber? I don't think he is openly gay.

Maybe he's still closeted, but he's been repeatedly outed over past three or four decades by coworkers, male models he groped, and everyone with eyes to see.

When with the Benneton expose be aired?

R88 fuck off. Seriously.

Sure, white muscular porn-like men were the models. The big problem is openly discriminating against Black and, particularly, Asian employees solely because they weren't white. A&F would hire them, as required by law, and happy to take the money of minorities (yes, minorities try to emulate whites so buy products specifically targeted to whites--but would stick minority employees in the back so shoppers would not encounter them.

The thing I find interesting in this particular controversy is the obvious lack of representation still drove minorities to buy the merchandise. They didn't see anyone like them in the ads and still wanted to be part of the lifestyle.

Nowadays, representations in media and ads seems to be the main driving point for minorities to open their wallets to buy, or watch, stuff.

R93 are you slow, J? Seriously.

Actually, I can find that out on my own.

R93 Actually, this all makes me think of the interview with Lisa Birnbach in the Warhol Diaries documentary finding out how Gays and Asians in particular glommed on to the Preppy Look.

R93 really just makes stuff up as he goes. And then replies to himself.

[quote][R88] fuck off. Seriously.

Yeah. Truth hurts. Boo hoo.

R86 Oak Tree?

R97 J, what was true about what you said?

A&F shouldn't give in. Woke culture will be a thing of the past in ten years' time. All this "guilty of being white" will be laughed about.

Instinct magazine has spoken. I swear that one picture is of newly ex Blake Mitchell’s boyfriend who goes by Dances with Leo looking up from the floor with hungry eyes.

[quote] fashion brands tied their "exclusivity" to young, white people. I'm not saying it was the correct thing to do

It was incorrect and wrong!

It was the major sin of the Ten Woke Commandments.

R100 where have you been? They’ve made a comeback BECAUSE they now are inclusive. They are starting to do well again now that they have plus sizes etc.

[quote] They're a private business, . . . Just don't buy their shit!

They totalitarian Cancel Culture demands rejects Free Enterprise and demands from complete obedience from corporations.

[quote] The company settled the lawsuit in 2004 without admitting any wrongdoing, according to Bloomberg. It paid out $40 million and changed its hiring guidelines.”

The company paid out $40 million to whom?

Their sales plummeted around 2010. Someone upthread tried to spin it and say they were smart to close stores but the truth is they HAD TO close stores because they were going broke.

I’m 2014 they finally added larger sizes. Until then the largest size was Large, and their large isn’t standard large. A&F clothing was notorious for making their clothes a size smaller. A L actually fit more like a M.

Since around 2018 their numbers have been going back up and they’re gaining steam again and are cool again.

[quote] A&F was in its own league. Don’t compare it to CK.

I MUST compare CK to A&F!

[quote] ‘White Hot: ,How Youth Fashion Turned Fascist

Benito Mussolini called and wants his word back.

[quote] the plural of ad is adds? Since when?

Since American became illiterate.

Remember when A&F got into a public feud with The Situation just to distract from having to announce big financial losses for that quarter?

I knew this twink who worked for them and thought he was a legit celebrity because he was a store model for them. Not joking. He would always go around speaking about how he needed to be cautious because of “who he is”. “If they only knew who I was…” type attitude, as if he was some actor on the rise or something. He was an Abercrombie store model, not even print model.

He was dating a wealthy 40something too. He was barely 19.

R111 Was he one of the Rhodes brothers?

R103 ah, but will they still be in business with that model in ten years' time? The tides are changing.

[quote] The tides are changing.

Fashion follows the latest fashion.

R114 but white models always remain on top.

This company selling clothes is a commercial enterprise chasing the biggest dollars.

All this moralising and scolding belongs in a church.

I remember going into the A&F store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan back in the day, mostly to scope the shirtless models at the door (I was in high school) and they had this video playing of two hot guys wrestling that looked for all the world like the opening of a gay pron video. I wondered if any of the heteros picked up on that. Probably not. I also remember that on some of their shopping bags (at least in Manhattan) you could see the male models pubes sticking out. I remember walking 10 blocks out of my way to follow someone who had the first one of those bags. Unfortunately A&F was not considered cool for anyone over the age of 12 at my school so I had to make special trips downtown just to check out the store and the models...and the Bruce Weber photos in the store.

R117 ummm what? They were in with teens and young adults. The actual Abercrombie store didn’t sell kids clothing

[quote] I also remember that on some of their shopping bags (at least in Manhattan) you could see the male models pubes sticking out.

Shocking!

But Chuck Heston was the first to show pubes back in 1966.

They sold teen clothing R118 - kids wore A&F when they started hitting puberty- like 5th or 6th grade when they could fit into the smaller teen sizes. (It was the 90s, baggy clothes were in.)

After that is was considered far too basic and suburban. (This was a Manhattan private school.)

And before DLers start getting all Aspie, this was 25 years ago. So it may have been up to age 13 or 14 or so. I just remember that after b'nai mitzvah season (7th grade) it wasn't a thing anymore. This was 1998.

R119 on shopping bags?

R120 teen sizes are adult sizes. If they can’t fit into adult sizes they wear kid sizes. There is no such thing as teen sizes.

Chuck Heston showed pubes in Planet of the Apes, one of the top grossing movies of the year.

R123 cool. That’s not shopping bags.

I knew DLers would get all Aspie - then the smaller adult sizes. I could wear a men's small when i was 12. It was huge but if I rolled the sleeves up....

And unsurprisingly our Aspie is the OP who has about half the posts on this thread.

Perhaps he can post about their playlists...

They sold a fantasy. So the fuck what. Every brand has their clientele and their employees reflect that brand. So what.

[quote] So what.

Indeed! This TV show and this thread is mere pointless scolding.

Ugly is forever.

Another WOKE story

[quote]The Abercrombie store in my local mall was really dark- I had a hard time seeing the tags on the clothes.

That's EXACTLY how the A&F store was at South St. Seaport in NYC.

Well, I didn’t hope for or want a six episode docuseries as they all seems to be, but I am surprised that it was just a one off and done, especially with all the hype it’s been getting. I wanted to see at least a whole episode on the history up to the transformation to set up what happened and put it in context how it influenced the past and how in some ways it just carried it’s history forward without change.

Interesting how they used period feel graphic and music at the start, but then that fell away. It did help set the time period where it was first big and hit hard. I loved the “settings” that they had for many of the subjects interviews, although they didn’t do it ironically in that it sold the same white affluence of A&F products, or they didn’t convey that clearly. Some of them literally came off as abandoned stores, which I thought they were going to reveal at the end. That CEO Jeffries was very creepy AF and I’m glad they eventually called him out as being Gay. Really none of the (forced) changes ever effected him, he just went on as he did from the start.

I’m really interested in the journalist guy:

R111 Was it Matt Damon?

Asking for a friend…

[quote]now that they have plus sizes etc.

It's not enough to make marketing a nordic aesthetic a mortal crime.

The Woke will come waddling after you if you dare only offer over-priced garments to the thin.

Watch out Kinfolk!

[quote] The Woke will come waddling

The Woke hate fit men.

The Woke hate nude men.

Nordic anesthetic is an adorable way of saying Whites Only, r133. Of course you knew that and that's why you said it. They were literally sued for not allowing black employees work up front. Idiots like you make me want to vomit. Thank god you're old as fuck and I'm going to outlive you by decades.

R135 blacks? It was about POC in general, and most of their lawsuits came from South and East Asians, not even black or Hispanic people.

[quote]Thank god you're old as fuck and I'm going to outlive you by decades.

Don't bet on it, darl. Firstly, unlike yourself, I don't get wrought up over nonsense, and secondly, I have, as you would put it – "Nordic anesthetic".

R137 J. You’re so fucking lame it’s sad. You have close to 200 red tagged accounts. No one has ever had that many since 1995, yet you keep on. At some point even the biggest trolls realize it’s time to stop and move on. You can’t seem to see how boring and lame you are to this site.

Only ever the one account. You're not crash hot with the trollish snooping either!

R139 but that’s a lie lmao. When will you get it? Just stop. Even the biggest trolls know when to quit. It’s gonna take something serious happening to you for you to get it I suppose.

Is that a threat? Great. Take yer meds, luv.

R141 I don’t need to make threats. You’re on a file with us. From your posting nude images of children to cyber stalking.

Tell us what's it like to be sad fat frau (of either gender) posting crap R142, and how your life came to this.

Actually, we couldn't care less. It's why we don't bother with the Daily Mail. Why read up on losers.

Gonna watch now.

You;'re a troll!!

No! You are!!

Am not!!

Are too!!

I know you are but what am I?

NYT gave the documentary a terrible pan.

Some like it. Some didn’t. That’s the norm.

I always thought this was Tucker Carlson, who, of course, it is not.

Jamie Dornan?

Neither

I liked this guy.

I work in HR. There was an urban going around that A&F kept an account so that they could pay off people who threatened to sue over not getting hired. I always wondered if it was true.

This could've been a lot "juicier" if they dived deeper into Mike Jeffries and to an extent Lex Wexner and didn't focus so much on the lack of diversity, at A&F, they really beat it over one's head towards the end.

I haven't seen it, r152, but what you're saying does not shock me. The trailer makes the doc sound like little more than a takedown by BLM.

It's just not a very interesting or well-made doc, it doesn't have anything new to share that wasn't litigated in the press during the time, and I don't get why they're even talking about it now? I guess we're into nostalgia for the Aughts now, and this is part of it? The flip-side of nostalgia anyway. There will probably be similarly scolding docs about how awful gossip blogs of the time were too soon, if so - somebody go protect Michael K from D-Listed please!

Ian Bradner (L), the other guy in the bisexual saga of the Fall 2000 catalog, is a firefighter in Indiana.

I never saw any 'live models' in the Abercrombie store in the mall.

R156 ummmmm

The focus of this doc is the elitism and racism. They could have made it a 3 part and focused on different things.

^ They could have focused on sexy nude men.

R158 it’s a documentary not a porn. But it takes a mature adult to understand that

R157 Yep. I'm watching it now and they just introduced a talking head called Angry Asian Man. Naturally the ugly fucks are upset that A&F was marketed with and catered to hot people. As the beginning of the documentary said, it's about being ASPIRATIONAL.

Mature adults don't need a "documentary" to teach them that a corporation will take whatever means necessary to sell their product and make money.

The naive people who made this "documentary" seem to think that corporations should behave like taxpayer-funded charities.

R161 you’re such a sad sad lost cause. The documentary wouldn’t exist if the store didn’t fall to the bottom 10% in stocks. What made it go up made it go down.

[quote] you’re such a sad sad lost cause

You speak like a Christian zealot.

Mike Jeffries was one of the creepiest men I have ever met. Well into his 60s at the time, dressed like a teenager wearing flip flops and college jumpers, face pulled so tight he could barely open his mouth. Pumped with fillers and botox, dyed hair, the whole deal, head constantly on a swivel staring at teenagers. Really seemed to believe that he was blending in with the teenaged A&F demographic. Married at least twice, now he is, shockingly, living with a man.

He’s always been obsessed with youth, beauty and being a part of the cool kids. I wonder if he was bullied growing up in Southern California. It’s either that he was bullied for being a very smart nerd growing up or he was one of the hot cool white youths and was obsessed with having that be his forever.

He was also a repressed homo who only recently settled down with a man, even if he keeps him hidden.

R164, R165 are obviously are seething with jealousy over the businessman who has a net worth of $300 million dollars.

R166 and here you are, AGAIN, doing a bad job at trolling.

Good for him in being rich, doesn’t change that he messed up his face and is obsessed with youth.

All of us are obsessed with youth.

R168 not to the same extent bud.

Yeah, R168, some of us are 'holier-than-thou', morally superior Social Justice Warriors who refuse the temptations of youth and beauty.

[quote]I guess we're into nostalgia for the Aughts now,'

The Aughts were a SHIT decade and nobody should feel nostalgic for them.

[quote] I worked at A&F in the Columbus City Center 1989-91 while I was in grad school at Ohio State. Yes, I'm white and I am 6'6" and, at that time, weighed about 220 lbs. Beginning in November, we had to go to a tanning salon once a week (paid for by the store) and, although not written anywhere, we were instructed to work out. We had to wear only A&F clothes while working and we had to buy them.

R78, what was the pay like? Did you get paid more, per hour, than any other mall store?

You have stated your boundaries, R172.

[quote] I just remember that after b'nai mitzvah season

Everybody who just read that thought "there but for the grace go God go I. A whole season? Thank you Jesus I never grew up around that."

R172 that poster is lying.

Wong Brothers Laundry, Two Wongs can make it White!

Faggot store

R177 Surprisingly, that never really comes up in the documentary. If they were so worried about image one wonders if they had issues with if the male workers presented as heterosexual enough or not. We all know Gay boys make up a large contingent of the work force in malls, especially in the clothing stores, and Gays being attracted to A&F was an obvious area that wasn’t discussed at it. Especially when you have two closet cases, Wexner and Jefferies, running the company to begin with and creating the images they were attracted to, hyper masculine.

There was a bit mentioned, or at least implied, in the choosing of models, but they didn’t touch upon that in the interview or hiring of store staff. What A&F was selling besides white affluence was clearly defined and hyper expressed gender role models, and they even seemed to have distanced themselves from things like metrosexual influences unlike Banana Republic. If it has been the rage at the time for guys to wear nail polish or eyeliner, you know the employee handbook would have forbid that. If the documentary would have exposed that some of the employees weren’t hired or let go because they were too Gay, maybe they were paid out/off by that supposed firing fund and this happened (and continued) without a class action suit, that might of added something new to the conversation.

What 12 year olds could fit in A&F?

R179 one that matures earlier and has hit puberty.

A&F seemed like it was the thing to wear, including in gay circles. Then suddenly it wasn't

r181, one day you're in, the next day you're out.

Heidi's famous line is often accurate, R182.

The old A&F aesthetic became the standard on Sean Cody and Corbin Fisher.

Why is Laura Ingraham posting on this thread and still using that tired word "woke"?

The model who got fired for not letting Weber molest him was obviously gay. The other model (the burlier one) was clearly making sure everyone knew he was not.

When I moved to Atlanta in the early '80s, there was an Abercrombie & Fitch store at Phipps Plaza. It sold things you would need to go hunting, kayaking, or on a safari.

It then changed into a clothing store, but unbranded, outdoorsy clothing. I remember once going to NY and picking up some shirts at A&F for the trip. I, stupidly, did not try them on before buying them. When I got to NY, I realized their shirts were enormously oversized. All the shirts I bought fit like an old-fashion nightshirt.

It was later that the store transformed again. Gone were the oversized shirts. Everything has the store name on it.

I thought it was weird that they didn't really discuss how gay everything was. They alluded to it briefly, but everybody making A&F what it was, everybody at the top that is, was gay. The Quarterly? The gayest fucking thing in the world. That thing was porn for an entire generation of gay boys. A&F mainstreamed homoerotica.

Bruce Weber was such a fat disgusting pig, if he had touched me I probably would've thrown up all over him.

The models had to fit a certain look and act a certain way. Mike Jeffries didn’t care if you were gay, and most times he didn’t know because that was the standard. You can be gay but you can’t be “faggy”. You need to give off the “All American” image. Homosexuality isn’t that, and that’s probably why he didn’t come to terms with his own sexuality until just a few years ago.

The documentary tells us how he went into stores and if some of the female clothing looked too “dikey” (word he used) he would absolutely lose it because that was not the All-American way. The womens clothing needed to be girly and feminine, nothing loose and masculine. The mens clothing needed to be preppy and very California hot blonde surfer bro. To him, THAT was the All-American way.

He was born and raised in Southern California after all.

I remember the outrage of the ad showing a white infant suckling on a black woman’s breast and an allegedly photoshopped image of a grieving family gathered about a young man who had just passed from AIDS.

Not to mention Mike Jeffries didn’t even come out. It’s know he has a “partner” living with him and that’s his boyfriend but he won’t ever admit that and he keeps the guy hidden. You won’t ever see them together. That’s how ashamed he is of being gay and not living up to the “All-American” image he’s obsessed with.

Known*

r191, that was United Colors of Benetton.

r191 that was Benetton. The AIDS photo was very moving.

PS I remember those racist Asian t-shirts when they came out. I was in HS at the time and I never wore A&F but some of the white kids would and I remember one wearing it and two Asian girls arguing with him before classes even started. That’s how I learned of those T-shirts existence and that led to outrage which led to media coverage and A&F took them down and burned all they had left.

I love how the racist on here keeps going on and on about “blacks” when most of the outrage and lawsuits A&F faced weren’t from black people, but from Asians and Middle Eastern people.

Sure destroys the lie that Asians were always treated the same as whites and welcome to “white spaces”.

Abercrombie was bullshit, The Gap and Banana Republic had better clothes.

Abercrombie was worn by guys who are now called "douchebros," I don't think that word was in use back in those days.

The preview certainly featured tons of the "gay male gaze", but not a HINT of it in any of the commentary. One of the things that made it popular was the sexualization of MEN. It was relatively new and different at the time. Everything was always "Straight male gaze"... nobody cared what the men looked like, it was all about the women, and naked women. Then this comes along and the catalogs are all about naked men (and fully clothed women).

Banana is more upscale and mature looking clothing, like a lot of Ralph Lauren’s back in the 90s. It was preppy and sharp but not very sexy or youthful.

GAP had a more clean middle class vibe.

A&F was more “white” laid back vibes. Lots of shorts with tees and flip flops.

A&F opened Hollister which was pure California vibes. A&F had more clothing suitable for NYC while Hollister was more Cali.

R199 the documentary is very clear on what the focus of the documentary will be on and they never go off topic. That’s actually a good thing.

However, the documentary does mention how Jeffries use of men was effective and what separated A&F more than anything. They always sold womens clothing and images also but the focus was always the beautiful fit white men.

R134 is a pic from Bel Ami, not A&F.

After the current BLM mania dies off, as it already is, someone, soon or later, will do it all again. And clean up.

I wonder if Ralph Lauren stores quietly did the same thing. Their aesthetic was the identical except the models kept their clothes on. The exception was their later use of Tyson Beckford.

I was never one who liked huge logos so I didn't buy too many A&F tees/shirts. However, their jeans were the BEST fitting jeans I could get my hands on. They fit me like a glove and I probably owned 20 pairs of those back in the early 2000s. I remember them being around $70 if memory serves, which many people thought was too much. Diesel jeans were far more expensive (and I had a couple pair) but didn't fit or launder as well as A&F jeans.

OP = Mike Jeffries, posting more than 40 times in this thread.

R204 idk about their stores, but RL ads used POC as well as white people. A&F was only white until around 2004.

The people who investigated A&F’s discrimination issue would go into competitors stores and never found the same issues A&F had.

R205 Jeffries was ageist as much as racist and self hating homophobe. He made it clear his clothing was for teens and early 20s. His ideal age group was 18-22 aka college aged. Not even HS. He didn’t wanna see 40 year olds in his clothing the way he didn’t wanna see Asians and blacks in his clothing.

For such racist advertising and hiring practices, A&F sure was popular with minorities. Blacks and Asians loved A&F. It was weird. You'd think they would've had nothing to do with it.

It's an old article, but it still captures what a disgusting human being - inside and out - Mike Jeffries really was.

Read it and weep, dude!

R209 most people didn’t think much of it all until experiencing it themselves. The documentary shows some of the FEW minority workers the company had and most of them were oblivious to the racism until after working there and then bringing national attention to it.

Their ads using only white people wasn’t really saying much in the 90s.

R209 because SOME Asians and SOME black people (who could afford their clothing) liked their clothing. It’s about style. If you like the A&F style and clothing you’re gonna wanna wear it. Race has nothing to do with that.

R210. He’s nasty looking. Those big, white chompers are disturbing

R213 He was famous for his plastic surgery. In that photo, the dude was over 60 years old.

He also had a stable of model-attractive boys and men hanging around his office and his home, all clad in distressed jeans, tight t-shirts, and flip-flops. His receptionist, his houseboy, even his private jet crew, all dressed like this. And when they age past 25, they're transferred out of his sight. He had to pay a few lawsuit settlements over that policy.

As a person who's been in the same room with Mike Jeffries no r213 that is not photoshop - he's even creepier in person

In the documentary, several people who worked with Jeffries said how disturbing-looking and creepy he was.

Mike Jeffries is almost 20 years older now.

I wonder what he's had done to his face since.

He’s 77 now. That photo is from about 2012, not 20 years ago.

Mike Jeffries wants only attractive people to shop in his store yet he looks hideous.

R217 Esquire has your brain!

R219 there is but so much a 77 year old man can do to still look like a teen, which is his goal.

Mike Jeffries is what Ronan Farrow will look like soon.

Matt - you shopped there

Thanks to op for trailer, which was complete and concise .tried to watch doc . Repetitive . Boring . Like Rachel maddow.

How many different ways can you say the same fucking thing ?

[quote]One of the things that made it popular was the sexualization of MEN. It was relatively new and different at the time.

How soon we forget!

I was in HS and college the years this brand was really big, and I always found it strange that it was marketed towards wealthy youth and considered clothing for such. I had a few items from them, mostly t-shirts that I really liked (their cotton was super soft I remember). But I never really recall it being particularly luxurious or even all that fashionable, considering that most other comparable brands had the exact same look and style. And their jeans were fine, but there were way trendier, more "rich-people" brands like Diesel, Paper Denim Cloth 7 and True Religion. So I never really understood the whole rich kid thing when it came to A&F. I miss those t-shirts though.

I agree r226. A&F clothes always looked cheap to me, comparable to Old Navy. It was 100% marketing with A&F, because they're clothes were kind of shit.

Because THEIR clothes...

Sorry!

They were never marketed as “rich” clothing. Even in the documentary they say they made the clothing affordable for middle class white teens. Their target group was 18-22 year olds, which they dominated for a few years.

They were compared to Gap, Bananas Republic, American Eagle etc. at the time, not Diesel or True Religion.

R227 is right, except that in my experience A&F clothes were more poorly made than Old Navy: didn't fit as well and didn't last as long.

A&F clothing were made 1-2 sizes smaller. As stated, they were extremely “exclusive” and you had to be a certain size and body shape to fit in their clothing.

The shirts were made to be skin tight.

Old Navy wasn’t. Old Navy is actually the opposite, with loose fits and clothes being bigger. Also, they’re much cheaper quality.

A&F cotton was extremely soft. Their Cashmere is beautiful

The shirt I got there (about 1996/97) was anything but skin tight. It seemed designed to bag and billow around the upper body, like I wasn't supposed to button it more than halfway—maybe for those with Bruce Weber-approved pec size. By contrast the Old Navy shirts and sweaters I've gotten perfectly fit me (38" chest, 15" neck, 32" arm). So my experience has been the opposite of R231's.

R232 sounds like you were a skinny twink. Of course their clothing, made for men who look like the guys in their catalogs, didn’t fit you. You clearly don’t understand the history behind this brand and who Mike Jeffries wanted in his clothing. Aka not you.

No I was in college in the late 90s and not at all a twink and the A&F button-down shirts I bought at the time were ENORMOUS - in fact I found a couple of them buried in a drawer when I was cleaning a few months ago and they still fit me, and I'm nowhere near the jock-shape I was in college. I do think things got tighter in the 2000s though

R233, why do you think I "clearly don’t understand the history behind this brand"? I wasn't expressing puzzlement over why the shirt was made to fit a catalogue model (which was obvious to me), I was just dissenting from R231's opinion that their shirts were extra small and skin tight. The shirt I got—a small—was baggy, not just made for guys with big chests, but weirdly proportioned: designed be worn partly open and pulled back over the shoulders, like a costume, rather than buttoned like a regular shirt.

FTR I lived in Columbus and got the shirt at the store that R78 (whatever his veracity) mentioned; I was well aware of the brand and Mike Jeffries' idiosyncrasies.

Mike Jeffries is pushing 80 now.

Former workers spill secrets

Netflix is so annoying. Some documentaries presented as a "limited series" or whatever go on for about 2 episodes too many. This one, with one 90 minute feature, could have used two more episodes. The "recruitment" practices used back then in contrast to social media influences was particularly interesting. I enjoyed watching this but I feel it could have gone further.

Well their hiring practices were pre-social media.

[quote] still using that tired word "woke"?

What term will you accept, R185? You're surely a Social Justice Warrior whose proud of your achievements?

R210

[quote] …what a disgusting human being …Read it and weep…

Mary!

[quote] self hating homophobe … disgusting human being … He’s nasty looking …creepier in person … he looks hideous…

Some of you Dataloungers are VERY emotionally-invested in people you don't know.

60/242 – or 25% – of the posts in this thread are from exactly one loser. Gotta be Mike Jeffries!

I’m embarrassed to admit this but I worked at both Hollister and abercrombie (marketed to 14 to 18 year-olds) in high school and the summer of my Freshman year of college, between 2004 and 2005.

I did not fit the A&F aesthetic as a tall, skinny black kid, and I knew it. I was never hired during group interviews, and yet, I would pathetically continue showing up to those interviews at Abercrombie, A&F, and Hollister, hoping to get lucky.

Like many teens during that era, I identified with and desperately wanted to belong with the cool group of kids that A&F represented.

In 2004, I was hired by an Asian Hollister manager, after I went back to the store I wasn’t hired at, and asked him why I was rejected during the group interviews.

I may have worked the two or three shifts, before I was relegated to the stock room and assigned hours late at night by a white manager who was quite condescending.

I knew I wasn’t the A&F aesthetic but oddly enough the poor treatment didn’t destroy my self confidence. I knew I wasn’t the A&F aesthetic. I knew I wasn’t hot, or a cool kid, like the 18 year-old buff white Hollister co-worker I befriended and hung out with that summer.

I was awarded $5k in 2006 as part of that class action law suit. Ironically, around age 21, after years of believing I was ugly and undesirable,, I somehow transformed into an attractive guy. To go from being perceived as “ugly” to being constantly told how beautiful you are is a total mind fuck and really something you have to experience to believe.

The store had two different era's. 90's-late '01 knockoff Ralph Lauren, upper middleclass prep school/ivy league meets naked fantasy. The original Bruce Weber period aimed towards college/twenty-something later Gen-Xers. Opposed to the more commercial '02-'06/'07 early-Millennial, high school, modern day definition white, caste system in Middle-America Abercrombie. Pre and younger teens that grew up with BW ads, exclusive seeming late Gen-X Abercrombie stores came of age themselves. Fashion changed. In came the tighter sizes, younger floor models, Hollister to Abercrombie pipeline, suburban exclusive, soccer mom incarnation. Yes, the early ad's instilled a "Nordic" esthetic, but that only continued as long as it did because the pre-socal media/social-outrage flyover states of 15/20 years ago that made the company so much revenue after its initial pop culture "moment" were favorable to that market.

The second period I would classify more as the post-industrial, Great Lakes, white "All American" look spread to the masses. For Christ sakes, the company was based out of Ohio. A lot of mixes between 2nd/3rd generation Irish, German, Polish, Slavs and Italians that would seem ostensibly "Arian" today, and not what would be viewed as multi-cultural in the current world, but actually were decedents of the largely Catholic, working-class former blue collar "ethnic" Americans were the stock of available human advertising they used during 2nd incarnation. Both cultures were products of their time, built on postneolibral/pre-recession market factors, fostered by a creepy, closet case living outside Columbus. Not exactly the most ethnically diverse place in the country, hence the "All American," but by no means peerage of the Mayflower. No way to keep that going forever, nor was it right in the first place; history always tends to be a little more nuanced than the surface reading it's given via Netflix.

[quote]There is a reason why Mad TV chose them to parody them.

God, these were hilarious.

I'd rather have men who look like men rather than the current head-cases who claim to have found a 'Beauty Beyond Gender'.

R245 it was white only until around 2004.

PacSun won't hire a 60 year old salesperson, Ann Taylor won't hire a male salesperson. What's the fucking difference

R229, point taken, as you are correct; A&F's clothing was never priced in the same echelons of high-end fashion or the trend denim of the early-aughts. With that said, I do remember it being priced above competitors like Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica, etc.. However, I wasn't actually getting at the pricing so much as I was the marketing of the brand. While the clothing itself wasn't all that expensive, the marketing was definitely geared to attract that upper-middle/upper class white guy or girl with parents who had money to burn. The advertising was purely young, attractive white males and females, empirically speaking, performing activities of the erudite and educated, things like frolicking in an ocean, playing lacrosse, rowing, skiing, or, as was depicted above, riding an elephant in some overseas country. These aren't activities your normal middle class kid enjoys.

Despite R88 being controversial, it's worth repeating that most fashion brands do what Abercrombie does/did on some level. A&F promoting clothing for a culture of white, privileged, beautiful people is just simply what it marketed itself as. You go into any upper-class shop and you rarely see a sales associate who doesn't fit its target demographic. And personally, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that, save for some exceptional circumstances. Where A&F miserably fucked up was taking the enforcement way too far to an almost-cult-like manner and being far too exclusionary in their hiring. And of course, Jeffries' abysmal, tone-deaf comments didn't help either.

I don't see anything wrong with this...

In case anyone was wondering WEHT various A&F models and greeters.

Yeah baby!

R245 your point about a&f starting in white Ohio may be a good one. People on DL really underestimate what "60% white" actually translates to. Last year I went to a parochial festival in the Midwest and it was a culture shock to realize that literally every face was white.

BTW: race is a social construct not based in biology and we need to year down racial constructs just like we need to year down gender constructs.

[quote] we need to year down racial constructs just like we need to year down gender constructs.

Do you want to tear down timber constructs and concrete constructs too?

I remember when they opened the A&F store in London and I was excited to check it out (I think I'd been to one in the US before then but can't remember) but inside it was so dark you couldn't see the clothing properly - it was priced in £s the same amount as it was in $ so essentially much more expensive for the same items, and the queue was ridiculous.

I'm pushing 40 so I'm definitely TOFA (Too Old For Abercrombie, something I heard from an American guy in his 40s when I was in my early 20s) but I do have a couple of their sweatpants, they are comfy what can I say?

The editor of AF Quarterly was so pathetic. Does he live in the woods, reliving AF’s glory days?

I thought it funny that he clearly sees/saw himself as AF material, with his unapologetically ethic first and last name.

The first part of the doco, charting it's inception, marketing strategies and place in mall culture was fascinating, but when it started focusing on disgruntled former employees it dissolved into a reddit-forum style of reporting with everyone saying the same thing in different ways. I can understand those in management being annoyed with the company but who really wants to hear some part-time students bitching about how they had their hours cut or had to work in stockroom instead of behind the counter 25 years ago?

All accusations of inappropriate behavior aside, Bruce Weber REALLY knew how to photograph men, as apposed to just taking a photo of a man naked. Those images are just incredibly beautiful and we'll never see anything like them again.

I agree the doc didn’t live up to the hype.

I’m surprised many of the people interviewed from A&F were willing to put themselves in this kind of light. I wonder how it was spun to them? It was kind of mean when they showed that guy in the too small shirt adjusting himself getting ready for the camera., but maybe it was karma for working for such a shitty company.

It would have been more interesting if they really dissected the background of Jeffries, He seemed to never get over his social status in high school and channeled this obsession about popularity and looks into a product In some ways, there was a common thread with the recent documentary about Andy Warhol. Chasing beauty through different forms of highly commercial pop culture.

I was long aged out by the A&F era. The last time I paid for clothes to wear a giant logo for a company’s benefit was my Coca-Cola shirt in the 1980s when I was 13.

I didn’t know what to make of the douchebro recruiter Jose, who seemed to look back with affection at the recruiting events and his time at AF. Couldn’t help but wonder if he realized all among that if he looked less Caucasian, he would likely have been ignored and excluded by other recruiters like himself. And the best he could come up with was, “It wasn’t not racist”?! Thanks for the insight, Jose!

Used to annoy me that they’d pipe their rancid cheap synthetic fragrances into their stores and their mall areas. Couldn’t even walk past an outlet with a wide berth and not still get a disgusting hit of FIERCE or EIGHT. And the brand are still pumping out new versions and variations of these vile scents—who’s even buying them?

Also, didn’t ever feel comfortable with those shirtless guys promoting outside the stores. Even back then, it didn’t seem sexy at all, more just desperate and exploitative.

r262 would stand outside the Abercrombie stores and scream at the shirtless guys "You're all whores. WHORES!"

R263 it wasn’t the public nudity or sexual connotation in isolation to which I objected. That is fine, I have no problem with people being naked or sexy outside the domicile or private four walls. I’ve made pilgrimages to nudist parks & beaches before, witnessed orgies, smiled at very risqué PDA. If it’s consenting happy adults sharing physical intimacy without an agenda, I’m here for it.

For me, the problem was of the use of a public setting to sell to kids all this mass market product (made by slave labour, we might add) via the proxy of suggestiveness from ‘perfect’ bodies. That is the antithesis of sexy, anyway—a sterile, corporate, cynical and soulless exercise in voyeurism; a fixed plastic grin on a sex doll or a traumatised whore; a chicken plucked bald and bleached ready for supermarket butchery.

By contrast, authentic and honest joyful sexuality harms none though it is animalistic, messy, hairy, smelly, and most all firmly outside the bounds of commerce.

You do know that one can be against hypercapitalistic fetishism, and still not be sex-negative, right...?

[quote]For me, the problem was of the use of a public setting to sell to kids all this mass market product (made by slave labour, we might add) via the proxy of suggestiveness from ‘perfect’ bodies.

Oh hi welcome to the Western World and Capitalism 🙄

[quote]You do know that one can be against hypercapitalistic fetishism, and still not be sex-negative, right...?

And you can just look at a bunch of shirtless guys hanging around outside a store, laugh and move on with your day. They weren't forced to do that by anyone.

Hot guys love showing off their bodies, btw. They have no problem with it.

[quote]For me, the problem was of the use of a public setting to sell to kids all this mass market product (made by slave labour, we might add) via the proxy of suggestiveness from ‘perfect’ bodies.

Well it obviously didn't work because American kids are fatter than ever. Obesity has exploded since the 90s. So many fat young people now, the girls especially. They're like land whales.

R266 many. Some are more modest by nature.

I just got into a huge argument with a friend who posted videos crying about missing the old A&F culture and speaking of it like it was a perfect time. He then posted a pic of himself in an old A&F hoodie he still has from back in the 00s.

Of course he’s attractive and white, longing for the days of only hot white people being treated well.

r264 has stated her boundaries.

r266

That's not always true is you wanted to "keep your job". Depending on who called off, you sometimes were forced to go shirtless as a seventeen year-old not quite wise to labor laws yet lol. They always kept razors and baby-powder in the back just in case.

^if

R271 is correct. You could be a cleaner but if someone who was supposed to stand out front shirtless didn’t come in you may have to go shirtless that day and be the storefront model. That’s why they hired based on looks and body for ALL positions.

In the mid 00s they began hiring guys to specifically be the shirtless models, due to the issue of randomly making the other workers do that job. They also changed it to 18+ to work there at some point.

r273

Remember when the general rule was tall and abs for the greeters, but in pinch, they'd just take abs? By no means am I trying to sound like a douche here, because the mere fact I ever participated in this has branded/scared me for life lol, but if the height difference was too apparent between the different greeters, they'd drag out a giant floor plant and put in the center as if to draw the eye away from the discrepancy. Strange world where nobody questioned why two shirtless, ephebophilic, males were greeting the community ( shitless, in flip flops in the middle of a December) standing on either side of a giant fake fern.

I'm from the UK, so we didn't really have all that here (maybe in London). It was interesting to read, though.

I find a lot of clothing shops aimed at twenty somethings tend to employ more attractive people than unattractive. Hollister is an example.

Even back in my early 20s I thought big logos on clothing was a bit tacky.

[quote]I just got into a huge argument with a friend who posted videos crying about missing the old A&F culture and speaking of it like it was a perfect time.

Now I want to see these videos - that sounds hilarious in a sad, sad way.

[quote]priced in £s the same amount as it was in $

In my experience this is the case with all stores I've had occasion to compare. TJMaxx vs. TKMaxx—I remember the CK t-shirts I bought at $9.99 being listed at £9.99 (circa 2010). Gap too—saw the same items in stores in London and Boston just a few days apart, and they were the same amount in $ as in £.

R275 Hollister is Abercrombie owned.

[quote] I find a lot of clothing shops aimed at twenty somethings tend to employ more attractive people than unattractive.

Der!

The UK era

R280 says Abercrombie & Fitch presented "the Californian surfer boy" while others here claim it presented the North-eastern New England young man.

Abercrombie style was very Southern California. Tight tees with shorts and flip flops started out west. The East adopted their style.

Mike Jeffries was born and raised Southern California.

Idk who thinks that style was Eastern vibes. Eastern vibes was far more urban before adopting west coast fashion.

LL Bean and Land's End are East Coast vibes.

We had a student worker come in for an interview at the university and he was beautiful. His resume showed that he had been an A&F model. During the interview, he pointed at his forehead and said he had had an accident and because of the scar, they had fired him. I couldn't see anything.

[quote] the scar

He may have had a scare on his personality.

This article implies some corporate bullying.

I read the stories from former workers on Buzzfeed. Way too much to put up with for minimum wage. One manager ripped a necklace off a girl because the only jewelry allowed was a wedding ring. I was in my twenties when A&F was popular and I didn't get the hype, more clothes made in Cambodia or Vietnam just like every other mall clothing store.

A&F has gone 180 degrees in the opposite direction. See its current men's offerings at its website. (For some reason can't link that here.)

This documentary was utter shit.

This documentary was an hysterical fuss over nothing.

To be fair, Jose made a statement about being a Brown man that looks White. He knew the drill, especially as he’d previously mentioned that he was the recruiter sent to the HBCUs.

The woman with the glasses that made the joke about the W. Virginia tee didn’t have issue with any of the insensitive remarks/behavior until Jeffries made the “dykey” comment. Veritable troll. It’s always fun and games until YOU’RE in the line of fire.

One thing I couldn’t understand was how the stores functioned without having to meet targets. Aesthetics and branding are one thing but didn’t they realize that their business model (a continuation of high school straight into Greek life) wasn’t sustainable?

Please tell me there’s a good Les Wexner documentary in the pipeline.

R283, what about J.Crew?

A documentary on J. Crew doesn’t sound that interesting, maybe L.L. Bean?

I remember when they were popular, I was probably in junior high school. We looked at the naked people in the catalogs but that was it. I’m aware it was popular but a lot of people in my high schools (I went to 2) didn’t wear it. A&F was kind of looked at as snooty if you wore it.

I feel like people were way more into American Eagle and Aeropostale which were like lesser A&F.

Yeah, L.L. Bean and its Trump loving president, Linda Bean

A&F was never popular outside of Manhattan and Staten Island in NYC. They were big on Long Island and Upstate, though. But there is a reason A&F never opened up stores in Brooklyn, Queens and Bronx when they kept expanding, they knew their audience wasn’t there. They had stores in Manhattan, Staten Island (the two whitest parts of NYC) and then Long Island had a bunch at one point. I think every one of them is closed now.

I bought a shirt online from them maybe 2 or 3 years ago. It was a large, but fit more like a medium-large. After a couple of washings (not hot) it shrunk even more. Pain in the ass.

R297 YES! Their clothing runs smaller to begin with, and then shrinks! It’s so annoying.

I remember paying $50 for this gorgeous pink tee they had back around 2007, and it shrunk after washing it and was too tight!

I just watched this doc and found it so interesting. I grew up during the height of AF and hated that place.

Then all the stories of racism emerged, which only supported my hatred.

Now, there’s a new CEO who is talking about belonging and equity and how the brand has changed

FUCK YOU—the brand is still banking on people remembering that it once had a glory day—which is when it was a fucking racist, sexist, classist, sizist brand and proud to be so.

Funny how this store was run buy a gay man, fashioned by a another gay man and full of gays—but white straight people just didn’t see it

[Quote] This documentary was an hysterical fuss over nothing.

A&F paid $50 million because of its racist hiring practices. It then took and lost a case about firing a girl because she wore a Muslim head scarf.

Much ado about nothing?

Totally a uncool brand now that shows up all the time at TJ Maxx

[quote] which only supported my hatred.…FUCK YOU—the brand is still banking on people

Hold on to your anger, R299, your anger makes you strong.

R301 people made their hiring practices (like ANY MAJOR BRAND THAT DEPENDS ON AN IMAGE) "racist". Yes, it's much ado about nothing.

R302 yet another lie from you.

The guy who “fashioned” it? Who would that be r300?

Jeffries was never out and married to a woman. I thought you knew all about this.

[quote] people made their hiring practices (like ANY MAJOR BRAND THAT DEPENDS ON AN IMAGE) "racist".

Their hiring practices were openly racist. All the workers were white models. Most of their imagery were white models. They hired based on how good looking the applicants were and good looking meant white. When they were called out on it (and they paid $50 million in penalties), they started hiring minorities and THEN stuck them in the back rooms to fold and inventory the clothes.

No, no other major brand had done anything this blatant and so openly

[quote] yet another lie from you. The guy who “fashioned” it? Who would that be [R300]? Jeffries was never out and married to a woman. I thought you knew all about this.

Um, Mike Jeffries wasn't out BUT IS GAY. THAT is nothing new.

A&F's photographer Bruce Webber is gay--responsible for the photos of muscled white men, often in homoerotic poses- and was accused by MANY male models of unwanted sexual advances.

Where's the lie?

[quote] [R302] yet another lie from you.

Perhaps you should actually watch the documentary before accusing people of lying. Everything is detailed quite nicely there.

[quote] Totally a uncool brand now that shows up all the time at TJ Maxx

The only A&F shirt I ever owned was bought at one of these types of stores--either TJ Maxx or Marshalls.

I watched it. I still don't see the problem. Every brand is selling a lifestyle. Who cares if they hired good look white kids. I would imagine there weren't any white kids working at Phat Farm, Fubu or Sean Jean stores back in the day.

[quote]I would imagine there weren't any white kids working at Phat Farm, Fubu or Sean Jean stores back in the day.

Cultural appropriation! Cultural appropriation!

Except for Benetton, didn't most ad campaigns for clothing brands feature white people back then?

Anyone care to squeeze in a few more urban legends?

Any recent photos of Mike Jeffries?

R309 neither store sells A&F. Good job replying to yourself though, J.

OMG your level of stupid is ridiculous. I’ve never met anyone so fucking stupid in my life r307/r308 same person.

Your comment…

“Funny how this store was run buy a gay man, fashioned by a another gay man and full of gays—but white straight people just didn’t see it”

The fact is that HE WAS NOT OUT. HE WAS IN THE CLOSET. HOW IS ANYONE CATCHING ONTO IT IF HES MARRIED TO A WOMAN AND NOT OUT? Him living with a man in 2022 had nothing to do with him running a business in 1999. Seriously. My head hurts from your level of stupid.

Also, the photographer DID NOT FASHION HIS CLOTHING. WHAT A STUPID COMMENT

Bruce Weber touching the male models was so gross. Imagine that obese bearded walrus trying to molest you. I would've been violently ill.

This is the most recent photo of Mike Jeffries

FFS r319 don't you know how to do a direct link to a picture? The internet wasn't fucking invented yesterday, you know.

This brand was popular when I was in high school during the 2000s. I don't remember any "hot" people working in the stores or wearing the brand though. Just wannabes. I always hated the clothes though. I did buy from Hollister a lot and found their designs more aesthetically pleasing. I appreciated the hot male models used in both ad campaigns. I was disappointed when I would go to a Hollister or Abercrombie store and there wouldn't be hot shirtless guys there.

[quote] I would imagine there weren't any white kids working at Phat Farm, Fubu or Sean Jean stores back in the day.

Yes there were. And G-Unit, Phat Farm, Sean Jeans and South Pole were popular with straight white boys.

[quote] Imagine that obese bearded walrus trying to molest you. I would've been violently ill.

Mary! You would have been disgusted, wouldn't you. You would have vomited, wouldn't you?

But you would have dry-retched instead because professional models know they must prepare for a major shoot by having an empty stomach and an empty bowel.

[quote] I always hated the clothes though. I did buy from Hollister a lot…

Why did you hate the clothes, R321?

Models do full enemas before shoots?

They do.

Look at Charlie Knepper.

From these photos, this is why my closeted self in middle school and high school loved 2000s A&F. I mean come on, even on Black Friday when they'd hire those shirtless models to stand outside of the store. It was always an event and somewhat exclusive (to fat people at least). Huh, I miss that shameless decadence and homoeroticism.

[quote]Models do full enemas before shoots?

It's a shitty business!

I think American Eagle, Uniqlo and Gap had a better reputation for quality and better looking clothing. A&F had the sexualized models which was nice but I never liked their overpriced clothing and it looked ugly to me. I hated how their stores had so much perfume in them. Also, I'm curious which A&F stores, DLers here went to because I rarely saw any goodlooking people working in the stores. Just regular lazy teen workers of average looks. I never saw any shirtless guys there. But this was later 2000s, so I'm guessing they changed things around.

Since porn is widely available, I don't miss their ads. Product of the time. Plus people are more wary of the effects of oversexed marketing to young kids. Time just moves on.

[quote] Plus people are more wary of the effects of oversexed marketing to young kids.

Has that changed things, R329?

Their clothing (A&F) was just boring and ugly to me. Very bland and looked cheaply made despite the high cost. Also, I hated how they insisted on having their name on every piece of clothing. Most mall store brands are scams. You could go to a department store and find better stuff for cheaper. All the cool kids at my high school went thrifting. Ironically despite their whitebread marketing, Asians were the biggest buyers. I knew people who worked at A&F and Hollister and they all hated it as they were paid shitty minimum wage and dealt with annoying retail customers. And I knew plenty of average to ugly people and plenty of Asian, Hispanic and Black people who worked at those stores. Only in a bumblefuck Midwestern area, could any of these mall stores get away with only hiring white people. I grew up in New Jersey, so all of the mall stores had a pretty diverse set of staff and most people didn't give a shit about it.

This was such biased liberal claptrap I couldn't stop rolling my eyes. And I never wore Abercrombie (too middle-class to afford it).

Especially at the end when it was supposed to be uplifting that now that Abercrombie is run by a female Jew and features fat black trannies everywhere it’s “good business.”

Sure, Jan.

Brands need to focus on quality first. I believe a large reason A&F declined was not the controversies (let's get real no such thing as bad publicity) but because the quality went down. Who wants to spend money on cheap Chinese made projects that are overpriced? The recession of 2008 didn't help matters either. It was associated with obnoxious fratbros and bimbos by the 2000s too. A&F destroyed myself by too much style over substance (though in my opinion, the style was not there during their late 90s/2000s peak).

It doesn't matter if they use hot white pieces of ass or disabled queer POC. If the clothing is shit, it won't sell.

[quote] The fact is that HE WAS NOT OUT. HE WAS IN THE CLOSET. HOW IS ANYONE CATCHING ONTO IT IF HES MARRIED TO A WOMAN AND NOT OUT? Him living with a man in 2022 had nothing to do with him running a business in 1999. Seriously. My head hurts from your level of stupid.

What a strange person you are. Who cares if he was in the closet. He's still gay.

Catching on to it? Catching on to what?

It's tough arguing with a Russian troll who doesn't understand English nuance well.

*itself

I think their quality of clothing was fine. Their shirts and jeans lasted. Especially compared to American Eagle and the poverty barn known as Aeropostale .

[quote] Also, the photographer DID NOT FASHION HIS CLOTHING. WHAT A STUPID COMMENT'

How the weather in Moscow, Vlad? Shouldn't you be fighting for Putin, your personal Jesus?

[quote] This was such biased liberal claptrap I couldn't stop rolling my eyes.

Um, he hired only white people and paid $50 million in penalties for being racist.

It's not liberal or conservative--it's illegal

[quote] And I knew plenty of average to ugly people and plenty of Asian, Hispanic and Black people who worked at those stores.

Yes, they had jobs there but were most often stuck in the back room

Rebranding to a more mature image is smarter. The youth market is fickle and never lasts. The former CEO was just a chickenhawk and that's why the company went that softcore gay porn direction. It was a good run but wasn't sustainable in the long run. The queens here need to let go of that era. The pictures and PDFs of A&F quarterly are online.

Adults aren't going to want to wear a brand associated with horny obnoxious fratbros and bimbos. A&F was hampered by that image than aided. They are returning to their original roots as a quality men's brand.

[quote] Especially at the end when it was supposed to be uplifting that now that Abercrombie is run by a female Jew and features fat black trannies everywhere it’s “good business.”

Everyone rolled our collective eyes at that.

[quote] The fact is that HE WAS NOT OUT. HE WAS IN THE CLOSET. HOW IS ANYONE CATCHING ONTO IT IF HES MARRIED TO A WOMAN AND NOT OUT? Him living with a man in 2022 had nothing to do with him running a business in 1999. Seriously. My head hurts from your level of stupid.

...doesn't seem to understand how being gay works...

Some brands deliberately produce shitty quality clothing, so customers have to buy new stuff sooner rather than later.

[quote] Except for Benetton, didn't most ad campaigns for clothing brands feature white people back then?

Yes, but that wasn't the issue. It was the fact that they only hired white people for their stores that was the problem.

Then there was the case of the girl who wore the Muslim hair scarf. She was actually hired when they knew she wore the scarf. Then they fired her specifically because she wore the scarf and recorded, in writing, that it was why they were firing her.

[quote] Huh, I miss that shameless decadence and homoeroticism.

THERE WAS NOTHING GAY ABOUT A CLOSETED GAY MAN RUNNING THE BUSINESS AND A LECHEROUS GAY PHOTOGRAPHER CREATING THE IMAGES!!!!

Cheap Chinese sweatshop made clothing priced up just because it has a logo on it. Gucci and Supreme come to mind. As I've aged and I'm 29. I just go to department stores or thrift because mall clothing is overpriced and garbage. Express, Hot Topic and H&M may be the worst. Most American brands are sucking now. Levi's I bought a few years ago already have holes.

My Old Navy, Hollister, American Eagle and Uniqlo clothing lasted a while though. So they probably are the higher end of mall quality. I was put off by Abercrombie as I did not like their clothing designs though I heard they got better. I'm just not buying mall clothes anymore.

It wasn’t illegal R338 as there was no conviction, no public fines, no wrongdoing by a government agency for equal opportunity employment.

They settled to make it go away, as clearly indicated in the documentary. They did not pay “penalties.”

Yes, it’s splitting hairs but let’s be correct.

And let me be clear, my comment means race-based discrimination.

The CAIR/EEO headscarf case was a different story.

[quote] It wasn’t illegal [R338] as there was no conviction, no public fines, no wrongdoing by a government agency for equal opportunity employment. They settled to make it go away, as clearly indicated in the documentary. They did not pay “penalties.” Yes, it’s splitting hairs but let’s be correct.

To be correct, it was illegal. Whether someone is convicted is another question, but discrimination based on race is illegal in hiring.

No one settles for $50 million just for the heck of it. A&F KNEW it was illegal and they didn't want an embarrassing trial

R347, legal semantics to obfuscate from the truth.

A&F broke the law and paid a penalty.

You can saw "they settled to make it go away" and blah blah blah, but the essential truth remains the same.

Incorrect and conjecture. People and corporations settle all the time to avoid continued bad publicity, drawn out legal fees (lawyers ain’t cheap), and so on.

You have convicted them in your mind; neither judge nor jury has.

Jeffries and the other executives at A&F didn't want their brand to turn into a "black brand" and be considered downmarket, which is what happened with Tommy Hilfiger in the same era. Once black people latched onto Tommy Hilfiger, it was considered "ghetto" and white kids stopped wearing Hilfiger's clothes. Much to the horror of Tommy Hilfiger himself, no matter what he said publicly. He wanted to be the next Ralph Lauren and it all blew up in his face. A&F were terrified that the same thing would happen to them.

It doesn't matter if it was "illegal" or not. Corporations have no conscience or mission to do good. They just exist to make money even if they have to do unethically. That's why people should boycott if they feel strongly about it rather than bitch because for a brand, any publicity is good for them. Honestly, everything about A&F, Victoria's Secret and other brands were just product of the time. The 2000s was nearly 20 years ago and naturally we cringe upon looking back at things. I find the nostalgia a bit annoying as the pop culture was regressive.

It's funny because the white kids I grew up with were in awe of black culture because hip-hop was the coolest genre of the late 90s and throughout 2000s. Even pop rock bands like Linkin Park were incorporating hip-hop into their sound. The CEOs are old racist farts out of touch. Maybe white kids in lily-white Midwestern or New England towns were put off by Black people wearing Tommy Hilfiger or A&F but white kids who grew up in urban areas or in diverse towns weren't.

It's ironic because now the fashion brands like Prada, Gucci and Supreme court the hip-hop audience. Abercrombie is popular with some Asians though who seem to really like the WASP aesthetic.

[quote]It's funny because the white kids I grew up with were in awe of black culture because hip-hop was the coolest genre of the late 90s and throughout 2000s.

Not the white kids A&F wanted to reach.

It wasn't about mass appeal, it was about reaching a demographic responding to the marketing message. Mass appeal would mean that either each demographic would get its own marketing campaign, or one marketing campaign would have all the elements pandering to all the demographics the company wants to reach.

I don’t cringe looking back on companies like them, R553.

[quote] Incorrect and conjecture. People and corporations settle all the time to avoid continued bad publicity, drawn out legal fees (lawyers ain’t cheap), and so on. You have convicted them in your mind; neither judge nor jury has.

Not only did they pay $50 million but developed a whole diversity employment plan to be overseen by government. So, yes, they knew they were guilty and did what rich companies can do to pretend they're not.

[quote] It wasn’t illegal [R338] as there was no conviction, no public fines, no wrongdoing by a government agency for equal opportunity employment.

If I kill someone but don't get caught, it's not illegal??

[quote] That's why people should boycott if they feel strongly about it rather than bitch because for a brand, any publicity is good for them.

That's exactly what people did. To the point that A&F became completely uncool. Now it's sort of existing without any identity at all

Not in the court of law, no.

It’s the same as the old philosophical question "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

And equating Abercrombie wanting a certain aesthetic to murder is the kind of hyperbolic reach that this trite “documentary” went for.

You can repeat yourself as much as you’d like, but A&F was not convicted, charged, or fined for race-based employment discrimination.

If you want a good docu-drama about corruption and corporate malfeasance, I strongly recommend “Dopesick” on Hulu.

[quote] Not in the court of law, no.

Okay, they paid alot of money to avoid a court of law. The only reason they paid and created a diversity plan is because they knew it was illegal. They knew they would be convicted and the law allows the rich to pay.

[quote] And equating Abercrombie wanting a certain aesthetic to murder is the kind of hyperbolic reach that this trite “documentary” went for.

The comparison is apt because the act is still illegal whether convicted in a court of law or not.

[quote] If you want a good docu-drama about corruption and corporate malfeasance, I strongly recommend “Dopesick” on Hulu.

Funny you mention that because the Sackler family hasn't been convicted of any crime either. I guess what they did wasn't illegal, according to your logic...

[quote] You can repeat yourself as much as you’d like, but A&F was not convicted, charged, or fined for race-based employment discrimination.

Because the law allows a loophole for rich companies to pay their way out of a trial.

It IS true R364. I think what the Sackler family did was criminal, but legally they are not.

Law is dispassionate.

The difference is that I do not think what Abercrombie did was illegal - like VS, Hooters, or other brands that rely on aesthetic - and similarly they are not legally convicted, charged, or penalized by any law or statute.

They paid money to get off the hook. And on the hook they were.

There's a different between something being illegal and whether someone is convicted of a crime.

Employment discrimination because of race is illegal, whether you are caught or not.

Morality vs. legality

Their hiring practices were illegal. Creating an all-white brand image wasn't illegal.

Hooters could be dragged to court for not hiring disabled women as servers or for any other job within the company. That doesn't make their image brand of women shaking their covered up titties illegal.

[quote] The difference is that I do not think what Abercrombie did was illegal - like VS, Hooters, or other brands that rely on aesthetic - and similarly they are not legally convicted, charged, or penalized by any law or statute.

If the "aesthetic" is hiring whites only, that's illegal. Even VS and Hooters didn't rely solely on race.

When Trump University cheated people out of thousands of dollars, the act was illegal. the University settled for 25 million and agreed to not admit guilt, but what it did was still illegal.

[quote] Their hiring practices were illegal. Creating an all-white brand image wasn't illegal.

And no one is claiming that creating an all-white brand is illegal.

It's the hiring practices that were illegal, whether convicted or not.

This is my last comment on the subject, because it’s just going in circles.

WERE they being discriminatory? We have anecdotes from lawsuit plaintiffs that their hours were cut, or worked “in the back.” Can we control for attitude? Punctuality? General demographic statistics (ie, store in a majority white area leading to hires being majority white)? Other factors? No.

Plaintiffs claim it was racially motivated and their prime argument is that the adverts are all-white, so that must be it.

Neither side presented their case in full in court. We don’t know what those arguments may have been. It looks bad because we see the aesthetic, and it was open that management was to prioritize based on attractiveness. Not race. You can say the two were related, but is that corporate-driven or driven by individual managers?

We don’t know. Those arguments were not presented.

Clearly you (and others) may disagree with that take, or say it’s “obvious” what was happening. But was it?

Mike Jeffries was the perfect DLer:

1. clearly gay but pathetically closeted

2. had embarrassing plastic surgery

3. thought only white college lacrosse jocks from 18-21 were at all fuckable

4. despised fat people and all people of color

5. had not much use for women

He fell from grace before the whole TRANS PANIC happened but we can guess what side he was on.

R372, A&F knew it would not survive a court challenge so settled and agreed to a diversity plan.

It's odd to me that you demand that everything must go to trial to determine guilt. The law allows companies this way to get around a trial it doesn't allow regular citizens. Companies pay loads of money to "admit no guilt." Because this loophole exists, you cannot say that only a court's judgment will determine if it did something illegal.

It's obvious to me and the rest of the world what was happening.

[quote] Mike Jeffries was the perfect DLer: clearly gay but pathetically closeted

BECAUSE HE WAS CLOSETED, NO ONE KNEW HE WAS GAY AND HIS BEING GAY DIDN'T MATTER IN THE LEAST!

Why do I feel there are some A&F execs on here desperately trying to defend the company....?

After watching the doc I had to check they still have stores. I wonder how their pivot is going. Glad that whole brand was after my time. I came up on Gap and safari era Banana Republic and J crew as a catalog brand.

Watching the doc gave me a bit of PTSD in that I wore a LOT of Abercrombie in the mid- to late-90s.

I refused to wear anything that said "Abercrombie" on it but I fell for those ads like a sucker and wore the underwear constantly. And the jeans.

I got off the train a little late, it's true, but thank god I abandoned that brand early enough to have *some dignity.

there is still a store on 5th Ave in Manhattan. it's overpriced. But I bought some thick flannel shirts from there for my nephews. They are good quality.

[quote] The law allows companies this way to get around a trial it doesn't allow regular citizens.

[quote] An Alford plea (also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia,[1] an Alford guilty plea[2][3][4] and the Alford doctrine[5][6][7]), in United States law, is a guilty plea in criminal court,[8][9][10] [bold] whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence.[/bold][11][12][13] In entering an Alford plea, the defendant admits that the evidence presented by the prosecution would be likely to persuade a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

R380, the difference here is that an Alford Plea is still a guilty plea.

I believe Michael Peterson took an Alford plea in the case of his wife's death in NC.

Omg J is even dumber than I originally thought. How sad.

r340 we have let it go, we are just commenting that in a sea of Bush era conservatism, you had kids of straight-laced suburban family walking around malls with half naked guys on their shopping bags and softcore porn mags sold next to teenager's dreams. As a gay kid stuck in a small midwest town that happen to at least have a Hollister, it was a glorious.

The CEO wasn't a chickenhawk, he liked the frat boy aged pretty boy types that dominated Sean Cody, Fratmen, and Corbin Fisher at that time. All young adult males. Chickenwahkes go for underage teens. An adult is free to fuck all the college age bros they want, but leave the high schoolers for the other high schoolers.

Mike Jefferies probably started this thread. He's a typical DLer as R373 stated. That's why he has so many apologists on this thread. Jefferies was that basement dweller gaycel type that ended up a CEO of an upscale men's brand and turned it into a gay porn paradise of white jocks and twunks under the guise of marketing it to teens and college kids.

A&F was a gay signifier in Ireland and the UK just a few years ago, was surprising how many men WAY out of Mike's target demo wore it years after it had fallen out of fashion Stateside.

I do not think Abercrombie & Fitch even employs White models on their website any longer -- quite the interesting 180˚ from their heyday.

A&F was not just for men like you all keep claiming. Every catalog had TITS as much as man ass. It was made for the gay boys and the straight boys. Only most straight guys probably didn’t even get the catalog.

Hey, it got the white hot straight bros to up their grooming, wardrobe and abs game so it was a win win as far as I’m concerned.

I remember this image from them and me thinking “what does this have to do with clothing???”

[quote] A&F was not just for men like you all keep claiming. Every catalog had TITS as much as man ass. It was made for the gay boys and the straight boys.

It barely had tits. The focus was squarely on the muscled white boys. The gay loves to see them and the straights wanted to be them

I love that R386 wants us to think that A&F catalogs were something other than drooling over seminude jock boys.

The catalogs were BOTH men and women. Just because you only cared about the men doesn’t erase the FACT women were always heavily featured also.

[quote]of an upscale men's brand and turned it into a gay porn paradise of white jocks and twunks under the guise of marketing it to teens and college kids.

I still don't understand what is wrong with this.

[quote] Their hiring practices were openly racist. All the workers were white models.

R306 Do you travel to Japan, Singapore and Nigeria and complain that their companies are "openly racist"?

You whiners from the 21st century are compelling that corporations of the 20th century are conforming to your current obsessions.

[quote] wore the underwear constantly. And the jeans.…I got off the train a little late, it's true, but thank god I abandoned that brand early enough to have *some dignity.

Thank god, R378. You must have been very ashamed but did you leave your abandoned underwear and the jeans on the train?

[quote] Jefferies was that basement dweller gaycel type

But R384, 15% of our Dataloungers share the same basement. There's more than a few of them in this thread.

Such beautiful clothing.

A&FQ was made for gay boys and straight girls. Gays and girls liked the hot seminude guys. Girls wanted to be the hot skinny blonde girls who were topless with nice tits. Straight men would not touch that magazine with a ten-inch pole. They had GQ, Maxim, Hustler, Playboy, etc. Gay boys and horny straight girls didn't have much in accessible reach besides the occasional shirtless male photos in Cosmopolitan or Vogue. Those teeny magazines with nonthreatening twinks don't count.

R398 lmao

r398 it's easy to forget what things were like before internet porn became commonplace. Before the time of getting hardcore porn instantly whenever you wanted it, you had to take what you could get when it came to jerking off material.

We've had many posters here share their memories of shoplifting Playgirls at Waldenbooks and drugstores.

Men's Health and Details were the magazines that had both straight and gay boys reading. Tons of shirtless handsome men in them but the lifestyle branding and bodybuilding appealed to straight boys.

It was easier for straight boys because not only was Maxim, FHM and GQ had softcore cheesecake that was easily sold but many male shopkeepers would sell hardcore stuff to Playboys, Penthouse and Hustler to underage teens with the mindset "boys will be boys." For gay teens it was much tougher to get that type of content due to fears of being judged harshly or outed. Some posters talked about getting older female friends to buy them stuff like Playgirl if they were still closeted. There was a gay magazine for young adults called XY but it was not apparently easily obtainable outside of cities.

A&F pushed young men, straight or gay, to be more self-conscious about their body and appeal. They created a look and lifestyle that was difficult to reach even for high schoolers. The advertising was part of creating metrosexual men who put more thought into their look and styling.

R403 Okay, I don't think they caused that because their marketing appeal was far too narrow. Gay men have always been more vain than straight men, A&F's image in the time was the product of gay men. It didn't cause gay men to just start caring about their looks. And even with the metrosexuality of Queer Eye that was mostly seen in urban areas. I grew up in a small town in 2000s and even with A&F, most guys wore hoodies, sweatpants, sneakers, flip-flops, graphic tees, jerseys, cargo shorts and gave no shit about their looks out of fear of being gay. A&F"s association with snobby white upper-middle-class kids and frat boys turned off a lot of straight guys who weren't part of that. The skater, emo, jock, alternative, rock and hip-hop scenes were just as part of the era and people were very cliquey. I feel the hipster boom of the late 2000s is when we saw more and more guys take more concern to grooming and being more clean-cut. But I really think social media had a more profound effect on the rise of vain and well-groomed men because their concern over their online image. Gen Z embraced male beauty far more than Millennnials did.

I wonder how many people here remember when there were almost no brand names exhibited on the outside of clothing (outerwear) at all. Just Levis, Lee or Wrangler jeans, It was a glorious time to be alive.

[quote]I grew up in a small town in 2000s and even with A&F, most guys wore hoodies, sweatpants, sneakers, flip-flops, graphic tees, jerseys, cargo shorts and gave no shit about their looks out of fear of being gay. A&F"s association with snobby white upper-middle-class kids and frat boys turned off a lot of straight guys who weren't part of that. The skater, emo, jock, alternative, rock and hip-hop scenes were just as part of the era and people were very cliquey. I feel the hipster boom of the late 2000s is when we saw more and more guys take more concern to grooming and being more clean-cut. But I really think social media had a more profound effect on the rise of vain and well-groomed men because their concern over their online image.

Well you're forgetting (or, correction, you're too young to remember) that before the "natural" late 60s-70s, men were usually very well groomed and clean cut, got their hair cut twice a month, were clean shaven, wore jackets and ties way more often, wore shoes instead of sneakers, wore overcoats, and generally took care of their appearance and their attire. People dressed nicely in restaurants, on flights, on dates. No jeans and t shirts, or shorts and tank tops (except at home).

[Quote] Do you travel to Japan, Singapore and Nigeria and complain that their companies are "openly racist"?

Um, no. I’m in America and A&F’s hiring practices were openly racist.

Not sure what your ridiculous point could be.

It was of it's time. As was Victoria's Secret. I've moved on.

[quote] Not sure what your ridiculous point could be.

R407 The point is that you think something is sinful, shocking and disgusting. But it's perfectly normal in other countries on the planet.

"Cheap fabric and dim lighting - that's how you move merchandise."

R410 Lessons from Delaney St. I take it?

Some of you are so tiresome. Do Nigeria, Singapore and Japan have laws that make it illegal to engage in discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc the same way the US does?

A&F got caught with their pants down. They were marketing an idealized SoCal image and lifestyle to floyovers that usually went to the local fishing hole and had never been out of their states.

The documentary was clear about their discriminatory practices. And, they had to pay. They fired a worker for being a Muslimah that wears a headscarf. They took it to the Supreme Court and lost. End of.

I like my racists to be upfront about their beliefs. The whataboutism is extremely lazy and you type like an exhausting cunt, R393.

R412 Of course they got caught with their pants down, how better to show off their underwear.

[quote] They fired a worker for being a Muslimah

But why did they hire a worker for being a Muslimah?

The Warriors for Social Justice need to shut down this company now.

[Quote] The point is that you think something is sinful, shocking and disgusting. But it's perfectly normal in other countries on the planet.

It doesn’t matter what happens in the rest of the world. It’s illegal in the US and racist A&F broke the law in the US

If the store didn’t want to hire someone wearing a headscarf, a smart company would just not hire the person and not give a reason.

A&F instead hired her (she wore a head scarf to the interview) and THEN fired her and wrote down that it was because she wore headscarf. Yes, cut and dry illegal but A&F had the hubris to take this all the way to SCOTUS where it was a blowout, of course

Once it became clear to me years ago that A&F was a racist company, I refused to even step foot into one of their stores.

Despite all their mea culpa bullshit they are peddling now doesn’t erase their evil, putrid past . I look forward to the day it goes out of business.

They have fat black trannies in their ads now. All is right with the world.

R418 = Highly Emotional, Grade A, Social Justice Warrior de Luxe!

R420, no just someone with a moral conscience

You are the most moral person in the room, R421!

We are unworthy!

Is "step foot" something like "set foot"?

[quote] You are the most moral person in the room

Considering A&F's sales have taken a huge dive and no one thinks wearing it is "cool" any more, there are numerous moral people in the room

When I was in HS/college, A&F fit me better than any other clothes. They were tight on my pecs and arms, but still long enough so the shirts didn’t look like a size too small. I would’ve kept wearing their clothes if there were no logos on them. I found the quality to be better than other mall stores. I had some tee shirts/sweat shirts for years and they got better the more I washed them.

I don’t see the problem with the “two wongs” shirt. How is that racist or anti-Asian? Wong is an Asian name and the characters on the shirt were the typical Asian cartoon men that are seen everywhere.

As a private company who wanted to convey a certain image, I don’t find their marketing or hiring strategy problematic. The A&F stores I shopped in has guys of every ethnic background working in them. There were hot black and Asian guys. All of the guys were tall ans lean muscular. I had the same body type and that was the target market. I still find it very hard to find clothes because everything in the US is made to fit short fatties. I thought it was time an American brand fit tall, athletic men. The best brands for me now are European- Hugo Boss and Prada are the best. CK and RL are too short and baggy for me and Japanese brands are too small.

Thankfully men can still buy clothes without being scolded by prissy sissies.

Now I would 100% watch a show called Prissy Sissies before I would ever view an episode of Queer Eye.

R245 I agree. A&F and Hollister fit my body size too. I'm tall and skinny and black. They are lookist and elitist like many brands and I don't have an issue with that because they want to sell a fantasy. Now the issue was the CEO was a disgusting old pig stuck in middle school and said so many ignorant things. Who the fuck is that old queen to make comment on others looks? Them hot straight boys don't want to fuck that whale. He should have shut up and just did his job quietly.

And also that the staff has always been diverse. If you are tall and skinny with an attractive face, you get in. Ironically, most hated working there because it was a shitty minimum wage for teens and college kids with little benefits. Also, where I live in Northeast, there's no way you wouldn't be able to go to store and not find a diverse staff. It's not realistic unless you live in some flyover bumble town. The actual models (not store staff) in advertisements were mostly white in the 90s and 2000s though but that was just an issue of the fashion industry then. Now you see hot Black, Asian, Hispanic and Indian guys in catalogs for Abercrombie, Brooks Brothers, Uniqlo, Banana Republic, etc.

I disagree about the shirt though. Using any type of caricature is in bad taste. H&M has a bad history of that too. European and Asian companies, I give leeway because they may not understand the sensitive history of America (blackface and darky imagery is still not an uncommon thing in the rest of the world) which is more ignorance than malicious intent. But an American company should know better.

[Quote] I don’t see the problem with the “two wongs” shirt. How is that racist or anti-Asian? Wong is an Asian name and the characters on the shirt were the typical Asian cartoon men that are seen everywhere.

At a time when Asians were hardly ever shown on TV or movies, these T shirts seemed like Asians were only allowed if we could make fun of them.

[Quote] Now you see hot Black, Asian, Hispanic and Indian guys in catalogs for Abercrombie, Brooks Brothers, Uniqlo, Banana Republic, etc.

Um, where? Maybe one here or there, but that’s it

[Quote] And also that the staff has always been diverse. If you are tall and skinny with an attractive face, you get in.

And yet the company paid $50 million dollars and created a diversity plan to make up for the fact that it didn’t have a diverse staff. Either you a mis-remembering or encountered A&F after the main racism occurred.

R431 I grew up in Coastal NJ, I was a teen during the 2000s, I remember the staff at the malls were always pretty diverse. Obviously more white than nonwhite but I never noticed there was a shortage of people of color in the the youth fashion stores. A lot of Latinos and black people worked in Abercrombie, Hollister and other places and had management positions. By that time, most of the kids in schools were diverse not just white like say the 1970s and 1980s. I can see the discriminatory practices happening more in Midwestern or New England or some Western states though.

And I just looked it up. The discrimination happened in a store in Oklahoma. Repeat Oklahoma. That should say enough.

My experience was very similar to r432

The “two wongs” shirt wasn’t making fun of Asians. It was clever in that if you changed the “r” sound to a “w” sound, the sentence took a whole new meaning. It’s not like it said “never trust a slanty eyed yellow chinaman.” They also had “pitcher” and “catcher” tees, and i wouldn’t consider them homophobic.

R433, that’s just the most famous case—the girl with the hajib.

The hiring whites only happened far earlier

[Quote] The “two wongs” shirt wasn’t making fun of Asians. It was clever in that if you changed the “r” sound to a “w” sound, the sentence took a whole new meaning.

No, it wasn’t clever and yet it made fun of Asians because Chinese doesn’t have a similar R sound

Chinese does have the R sound. Two is translated to Er in Mandarin.

And everybody knows- the Chinese change “Rs” to “Ls” when they speak English, not “Ws”

So does the doc telle us anything we didn't already know?

I had never heard of the freak Mike Jefferies before, very low key CEO for someone so vain, and I wished they would have made more of the link with Epstein and his cabal with closeted Gays like Jefferies and Wexner.

^ What a tragic story from Hananah Zaheer.

But Hananah Zaheer does write fiction.

If they had a shirt with grinning and dancing blackface cartoons saying "Mammy and Rastus' Watermelon shack. Come on downs. Sho is good" People would not debate the racism. It doesn't matter if it's black, Muslim, Asian or Native American. Caricatures are outdated, not funny and belong in the 20th century. I can't believe fashion brands still try to get away with this like H&M and Gucci.

If R434 fucking kidding? This t-shirt, with a joke about a Chinese laundry and Chinese caricatures wearing coolie hats, wasn't making fun of Asians? It's as if A&F deliberately came up with the most offensive thing they could put on a t-shirt after scouring dusty manuals of ethnic humor from the Johnson-Reed era.

R434 Still thinks this commercial isn’t racist or talking about Shanghaiing someone.

R444, I hate the part where the white lady pulls at the corners of the eyelids and says “me love you long time!”

What do we get for ten dollars?

Not everything in this world is for everyone.

Abercrombie catered to hot white 18-24 year olds. When I was 14-24, I wore the clothes and they looked great on me. SeanJean, South Pole, fubu, esquire, BET, HBCUs, Univision, etc all do the same that Abercrombie did, just got different races.

I also think that straight people should stay out of the Pines.

„Jeffries and the other executives at A&F didn't want their brand to turn into a "black brand" and be considered downmarket, which is what happened with Tommy Hilfiger in the same era. Once black people latched onto Tommy Hilfiger, it was considered "ghetto" and white kids stopped wearing Hilfiger's clothes. Much to the horror of Tommy Hilfiger himself, no matter what he said publicly. He wanted to be the next Ralph Lauren and it all blew up in his face.“

This is bullshit and not true at all. Tommy Hilfiger wanted the street cred and that is why he reached out to artists like Snoop Dog and Aaliyah. He and his team recognized that Rap/RnB artists had mass appeal and gave the brand a cooler image. He was actually ahead of its time, back then fashion houses did not want any connection to hip-hop. Of course now Balenciaga, Supreme, Gucci are all about streetwear fashion and collaborations with black rappers.

One of the proudest moments of my life was the time I walked into an A&F in college and got offered a job on the spot. I would accomplish much more important and prestigious things moving forward, but there’s a really sick part of me that thinks that’s the pinnacle.

r448 that was not true at first.

[Quote] Not everything in this world is for everyone. Abercrombie catered to hot white 18-24 year olds.

You’ve completely missed the point of A&F’s legal Issues

OK most people who wore A&F were not "hot." They wore it because they want to look hot like the models. That's called marketing and it's psychological. If you are tall and skinny then you can wear their clothes. That does not equal hot. I think people with low self-esteem who want to resemble the models would be the most slavish to an overpriced brand.

Hot people are hot because they are. It's genetics, discipline and diet. Not for what they wear though nice clothes and hair can enhance someone. Most hot guys dress like shit because they're guys and prioritize comfort and function first rather than ornament. Confidence makes a guy hot too.

Back in the early 90s, one of my fraternity brothers was hired to be a shirtless model; he had an incredible chest. He would hang out at the entrance to the store. He came back to the house every day complaining about people pinching his nipples at they walked past, and they were sore.

The thought turned me on.

^ How amusing!

The downside of being beautiful.

[quote]Back in the early 90s, one of my fraternity brothers was hired to be a shirtless model; he had an incredible chest. He would hang out at the entrance to the store. He came back to the house every day complaining about people pinching his nipples at they walked past, and they were sore.

Dang. I didn't even know that was a possibility to do that to the models. Another thing I missed out on.

I imagine nobody cared about harassing male models. If that would never be done to a female model without serious retaliation.

Now I would just ask a model what his Twitter or OnlyFans account handle is.

Asians find the t-shirts to be offensive.

And those Asians would be Wong, R458.

You can download the 47 page manual of Mike Jeffries requirements for the Abercrombie private plane. It is totally nuts and makes him look like a control freak.

Why don’t we have our own A&F playlist guy to teach us the ways of the soundtrack of there stores?

R460 thanks but that site requires a subscription

This company did service by hiring people of the Polish race.

Alan Ritchson has been quiet about this…wasn’t he a model for A&F at some point?

This sad and lonely middle-aged narcissist twerp posts a revisionist history of his brief time there.

You sound bitter and jealous R465, did he block you from his Only Fans page?

[quite]Once black people latched onto Tommy Hilfiger, it was considered "ghetto"

Hello, louis vuitton here!

Americans are the biggest hypocrites on the planet. They all claim to be religious and patriotic. The wave the flag and brag about their Constitution providing fairness for everyone. Yet when Americans act contrary to those values they all claim to have (cough cough RACISM.... cough cough... DISCRIMINATION... cough cough Jan 6 Insurrection), nobody ever suffers any real punishment for it.

America is a fucking joke! The whole world is laughing at you!

The T shirts are offensive, the Calgon commercial is not.

[quote]Americans are the biggest hypocrites on the planet. They all claim to be religious and patriotic. The wave the flag and brag about their Constitution providing fairness for everyone.

Euro trash who think like that are far more hypocritical. Not all Americans are like what you see on TV or social media. The majority voted Trump out of office, it's the minority that are shit. Please let us know when France, the UK or Denmark elects a Black, Asian or Indian Prime minister. Then we will talk about cough, cough RACISM. The whole world sees what you are doing.

R470 that's not the own you think it is

R471 does not understand racism is not just about name calling or physical clashes in public.

R471 and your statement wasn't as insightful as you thought it was.

The black population of France, Denmark and the UK is far less than the mere 12 percent of the black US population

If Stormfront opened a clothing store in every mall they'd clean up.

The diverse A&F has left a massive gap in the market for a brand to take their place.

Just black people R474? Talk about cherry picking. If you combine all the people of color in the UK 13% belong to a Black, Asian, Mixed or Other ethnic group. So again, I ask, why has there never been a Prime Minister of that 13%?

The subtleties of racism are quite obvious with Europeans. They just wont own up to their own hypocrisy.

Unlike America, there is no racism in the UK! Cough, Cough Bullshit.

[Quote]The majority voted Trump out of office, it's the minority that are shit.

R470 That is not an "own" at all. Let's not forget that a majority ALSO voted Trump into office. How did America become such a shitty place to allow someone like Trump to ever hold their highest office? That's a serious problem. And do we even need to address the insurrection and how the very same people who tried that bullshit will likely be running both houses of Congress this fall? Get off your high horse honey. Before you criticize Europe, you might wanna first clean up your own shit.

[quote]Unlike America, there is no racism in the UK!

The BBC dropped their CrimeWatch show because it was becoming too sensitive: the pool of offenders had become almost all non-white.

No one is trying to "own" anyone, for fucks sake, a counter comment is just that an apposing point of view. Racism exists everywhere, not just America. I am pretty sure the form of slavery introduced to America was a British standard. And yet after conquering all those other countries, bringing slavery all over the world while pretending to be so enlighten now, still never given a person of color a chance at Prime Minister.

And now...

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

What a shock. Smh. Shocked it didn’t happen sooner r482

The BBC podcast that started it all just added two new episodes. Yet more guys come forward with salacious tales of Jeffries hiring young guys so he can finger their A’s&F’s