General News Abercrombie and Fitch controversy

You have got to be kidding me. What a f***ing douchebag. People like him disgust me, they're the reason a lot of kids have self esteem and body image issues. He really is the scum of the Earth. Never was a hug fan of their clothing, but now I'll never buy it.

 

Um, talk about irony, this CEO guy is one of the ugliest people I've ever seen, looks like an alien zombie or something. Yet he's apparently convinced that Abercrombie & Fitch is for young and beautiful people like him.

Just saw a bunch of these haha:






Does he really think he belongs with the guys his company hires as models?





Anyway, I don't wear much A&F, though I guess I have no choice but to admit that I do like to wear Hollister, which is an Abercrombie brand, as the pic in my avatar would betray....it's obvious that these brands don't go out of their way to accommodate plus-sized people, but to say something so blatant and offensive like this is just stupid.

But A&F has been embroiled in controversy for years over its practices in glorifying thin white people as the only standard of beauty in its hiring and stuff, I've heard stories of people who are on the chubbier side or even just not white being snubbed by employees at A&F stores.

 

^ LOL, one of the model is Asian. But omg, his face. Like some old people can age gloriously and beautifully. WTF ARE YOU DOING. STAHP. You're not even like hot old man. idk.

anyways, A&F, nothing new....

I mean we all kind of know that all big companies use attractive models and maybe photoshop and put make up a bit, but going out of way to saying it is just whatever lol.

And for most stores, despite how their models look, they still offer a higher range of sizes

 

I've heard people saying things like "Nobody complains that Lane Bryant doesn't carry size zeroes!"

There's nothing wrong with specializing. Lane Bryant carries "plus" sizes, and that's fine. I'm not opposed to A&F only carrying smaller sizes. I've known they have for years and it didn't bother me. But the problem is when you act as if you carry small sizes because small women are "hot" or "cool" and large women aren't. That's a problem. It makes you a manipulative ass.

It's one thing for society to inadvertently perpetuate a ridiculous standard of beauty. It's another to sit there and say that you very intentionally treat people as if their size determines their worth. The "Fuck humanity, I want money" attitude really pisses me off.

 

I have always been intrigued by A&F, and therefore I shall rant.

Our general disgust over their questionable practices aside, their exclusivity, obsession with physical perfection and all-in-all "douchebaggery" are one of the key factors of their success.

I recently read an article analysing the sales execution and marketing strategies of A&F, and A&F essentially functions like a high school clique, but on a much larger scale. They thrive on the impression of elitism and the "cool factor". What better way to appear cool than to adopt a better-than-thou self image and exclude others that are perceived as "uncool"? It's not the first time A&F has come under fire for their allegedly discriminatory practices- they don't like to hire people of certain races, and people deemed "not good looking enough" are often relegated to staking boxes in the back of the store.

This can also be reflected in both the models used and the salesperson- it's like you're invited to some party where all the people are pretty, popular, suave and sociable. This gives off the suggestion that "by buying our products you're going be just as beautiful and popular as us!" Of course, this technique is common among all retailers (just think of all the beauty products commercials). But A&F just seems to take this to a whole new extreme.

I'm not an avid fan of A&F (in fact the brand has never been that popular this side of the world), but in the few times I've ventured inside an A&F/Hollister store, I just find their layout to be confusing and downright creepy. Their stores are all dark, with the lights focused on the shirts/jeans/stuff, so other than maneuvering from one island of light to another you risk crashing into staff or other shoppers. Their layout looks more like a labyrinth than an actual store, and it's so saturated with perfume and loud music that I often cannot think, and leave with a headache (yes, from the above you know I'm not a big fan of clubs either). I would argue that all these are techniques to confuse their customers, and to manipulate them into buying their products, and their stores in general aside from the odd eye candy or bare chests have few redeeming qualities.

Finally, many of the above posters have pointed out that A&F's CEO is rather unfitting of it's brand's youthful, All-American image. He built this clothing empire from the ground up, and I think in some ways the A&F is a personal fantasy, to satisfy his craving for popularity and beauty and youth.


*rant over*

 

Oh yeah, I've seen this...

It's just bad business. And actually, it hurts you more than it hurts everyone else. You don't want fat people in your stores? that's fine. You're missing out on a ton of potential customers, no pun intended. But that also means lots of money is going to someone else, not you.

Oh, what's that? You can't open the 15th store in China?

Oh, well if you actually included more people, maybe you could. Perhaps you could go and grab another case of Mountain Dew.

Perhaps you could also benefit the economy more and create more jobs, and be able to fund and pay your employees to what they should be paid.

 

the CEO is an addict to plastic surgery. he has that windtunnel look to him becuase he is so insecure that he takes it to far... that, or he is the demon spawn that shot out of this sad old bags saggy meat curtians:

 

Have to agree I'm not sure what the great appeal is of the way A&F/Hollister stores are laid out, it's hard to see in there, and I still haven't figured out exactly how things are organized.

The staff there have always been young skinny white people, and their quality has been hit-or-miss. I've found some of them to be nice if a little prissy, though some can seem really bitchy and they don't seem exactly eager to help customers. Like they're too good to actually be serving customers, even though that was ostensibly what they were hired to do. If I were a larger size person I would probably feel too self-conscious to even walk in there, I'd be afraid of the employees either staring at me or ignoring me.

The best part about it is just the big lit-up posters of hot blonde surfer guys lol. Though they're probably just models who never surfed in their lives.

 

To me though, it boils down to being the same as having no need for a straight pride event. Heterosexuality is catered to and glorified and therefore there's no need to celebrate it since it's celebrated all day every day. It's the same with people who make the Lane Bryant comment; having a store that caters to plus sized women isn't the same as deliberately stating that being a twig is the ideal. Being thin for a woman is glorified and celebrated and endorsed as being what women should strive for every second of every day. Plus sized women are still discriminated against, shamed and told they aren't beautiful because of their size so they need a place they can go to get clothing without being looked down upon. Sorry for the tangent, and it's not directed at you; I just hate when people make stupid comments like, "Why isn't there a straight pride?" or "No one complains that Lane Bryant doesn't have size 0" without grasping the differences in situation.

 

It's pathetic anyone outside of gradeschool can think like this

 

I see your point, but compared to sexuality there are two big differences:

A) Heterosexuals are the overwhelming majority of the population and thus wield all the societal power. Thins definitely aren't a majority of the population, especially in the United States, with its ever-worsening obesity epidemic.

B) Sexuality can't be changed. But people can gain weight and loo\se weight.

People all have different body types; I don't think there's anything wrong with certain brands catering to particular body types. The problem here is with an idiot CEO who rather than focusing positively on who he wants his brand to appeal to, he goes out of his way to focus negatively on who he deliberately wants to exclude from his brand, which is both incredibly offensive and a bad business decision.

 

There's fairly extensive evidence that thin people are privileged over fat people in our society. Sometimes minorities are able to successfully oppress the majority (any understanding of poverty has to recognize that the wealthy are very able to oppress the vastly more numerous poor). Our society priviliges physical signs of health (I would argue as a proxy for class, but that's another discussion), and quite heavily.

And while it is possible to lose weight, it is extremely difficult, far more so than most people realize, and the rates of people who successfully lose weight and maintain their lower weight aren lower.

 

The wealthy have power because they have the overwhelming majority of the wealth and can exert influence that way. Heterosexuals have an overwhelming numerical majority, and with that they dominate and control our democratic institutions. Skinny people don't really have more of anything, if anything they just have less food I suppose.

Well, some people have medical conditions that prevent them from having control over their weight. However for most people it's a function of how many calories they take in versus how many they burn each day.

 

off topic:
was the CEO actually a cool/popular person back in school years, or was he an outcast or something trying to regain his cool? rofl

EDIT:
I mean, there are stores that cater to gay men and use white athletic looking men, but their CEO... lol.

 

I'm sorry. Just wanted to say, he bears an uncomfortable resemblence to old!Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future movies.

But that aside, pah. Never liked their clothes anyway. Cheaply made, too pricey for what they're worth.

 

There's actually a pretty strong connection as far as I remember between poverty and obesity in America. It's because unhealthy food is really cheap and really fast. People living at lower income brackets working multiple jobs might not have time to cook or exercise, so their only cheap options for food come from fast food restaurants.

And skinny people have a lot more prestige (I'm searching for the right word, not sure if that's it) in our society. Everywhere you look skinny people are glorified as beautiful. Skinny is an ideal to reach, while fat people are shamed. That prestige means a lot, when you go into a job interview, you're being subconsciously (or consciously) judged, and the stigmas our society has against larger people are going to effect you. Skinnier people have an enormous amount of privilege.

On an entirely different note: as much I don't think this CEO is a very attractive man I think it's incredibly hypocritical for us to shame him because of the way he looks. Isn't it enough to be horrified at what he's saying and criticize him for that? Let's not point at him and call him ugly, then we just become the people we're criticizing.

 

I came across a tumblr post which summed up this article - I was relatively shocked tbf.

But I seem to be in that minority that just don't think it's that bad. He is welcome to cater for whichever group he so desires and if that is "beautiful and thin" people then that is that. It's offensive to imply that a fat person can't be beautiful, but he's entitled to decide his own target group.

I understand why so many people are pissed off at this though and it's got to be damaging for a few people's self-esteem lol.

 

^ Wow you just stole the words from my mouth!

Physical attributes have always been intricately tied to social status, prestige and consequentially influence. In medieval times fat people are considered good because it's a sign of affluence, and thus power. In the modern age, skinny (or more specifically "fit" people) are seen as desirable with an added layer of implied affluence because only relatively well-off people have the money and time to be careful about what they eat, have time to exercise and take care of their hair and skin etc. Just like how Chinese brides would wear dresses sewn with gold on their wedding day as a symbolic display of wealth, a skinny body is a symbol of affluence and power.

So, how does this correlate with the other two groups of people perceived to hold power? For the heterosexuals it's numerical (they hold the absolute majority in society by number). For the great capitalists, aristocrats and industrialists it's their monopolistic control of wealth and means of production (whether they be money, machinery, land or political power). For skinny or any other people deemed to have a desirable body/physical attributes, it's attention and depictions in culture. However much we want to masquerade as a "diverse society" where everyone have a similar levels of visibility and representations, skinny people feature disproportionately in our cultural products, from adverts to film to runways.

Overtime, this would reinforce the idea that
skinny= visibility= influence/popularity/acceptance/admiration= desirable.
Thus begins our never-ending quest for the perfect body, perfect facial shape, perfect hairdo, etc.

---------- Post added 11th May 2013 at 04:04 PM ----------

I guess what threw most people off with his little speech is how negative it is, he could've simply said "I believe that since A&F aims to present a healthy, youthful image of the All-American girl/athlete we specifically targets our products to a specific group within the society." Instead he goes on a rant on how certain people are "just not popular" enough to wear his brand's products etc. It's just really bad PR and I think the CEO had not thought things clearly through and anticipated it's long terms impacts when the words came out of his mouth.

 

While that's true, the trendlines are toward increased obesity among every income group, so class alone really can't explain the recent spikes in obesity that threaten to be a serious health crisis.

I've heard this, but I'm not convinced this is borne out by reality. Maybe if we're talking about modeling or something like that, sure, they demand unhealthy levels of thinness.

But in general society? Most Americans are overweight, and American society as a whole is largely adapting to meet their needs; seats are being widened, cars are being designed for larger people, clothing is being made larger and with looser cuts.

With regard to the earlier implication that every store caters to 'privileged' skinny people which is why special plus-size stores like Lane Bryant are allowed but not petite-focused stores like A&F/Hollister.... that simply isn't true, not for men at least. I used to go looking to buy pairs of jeans at stores like Men's Wearhouse or department stores like Macy's, these are general, non-targeted stores that are supposed to carry stuff for everyone. And every time I went looking and found a pair I might have liked, they had sizes that went way up the plus scale, to like a 50-inch waist, yet the smallest sizes they had in each case was between 30 and 33, way too big for me. Two weeks ago at H&M I ended up having to buy womens' jeans again because there was very little available for men at the low-end. Maybe it's different with women, but being skinny is not some instant ticket to privilege and access like being white or straight is. There are downsides.

And maybe some people shop at places like A&F because they share the CEO's desire to show off and stick it to people who can't fit into their clothes, however there are plenty of people who simply shop there because the cuts and sizes suit their body types, because it IS difficult to find well-fitting clothing for petite sizes in the U.S. I was discussing fashion with someone on here recently from New Zealand (Ridiculous) who imports clothing from Asian brands because apparently it is a similar situation there. Everyone knows their own body best, and knows which brands will work for them.

And skinny people get a lot of abuse from society too. "Oh, you must be anorexic, are you going to throw up?" "Oh sorry I only like people with some meat on their bones." "You're too skinny, you look like a faggot dying of AIDS"; heard that last one from my father's lovely tavern patron friend a few weeks ago. :rolle:

Oh come now, do you think the 68-year-old multimillionaire CEO who made global headlines calling people fat and ugly and saying he doesn't want them in his store, feels shamed because of some juveniles posting about his appearance on an internet forum for closeted homosexuals? :badgrin: