But barely disguised in the label’s new tagline, “This is #AbercrombieToday,” is an acknowledgment that there was a yesterday we’d rather forget.
Any chance of that has been effectively thwarted by the new Netflix documentary “White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch,” which charts Abercrombie’s transformation from a forgotten 19th-century outdoor store to the epitome of late-’90s teen fashion. brings. Through interviews with former models, recruiters, store clerks and executives, the 88-minute film suggests that appearing cool, attractive, and white wasn’t just an exercise in branding: it was an active business strategy at the expense of non-white employees and consumers.
In 2005, taxis drive in front of an Abercrombie & Fitch billboard in New York. Credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Despite all the current messages about inclusion, millennials (and older) will remember a very different Abercrombie — one that took over malls and billboards with an army of attractive models and ripped male torsos. One that spread across college campuses and was mentioned in LFO’s 1999 anthem “Summer Girls” (“I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch,” the band’s late vocalist Rich Cronin sang. “I’d take her if I had one. wished”).
At the time, it seemed that the brand could do little wrong. A former merchandiser recalls a co-worker telling him they could write “Abercrombie & Fitch” with dog poop and put that on a baseball cap and sell it for $40.” One of the brand’s former models put it even more succinctly: “If you weren’t wearing Abercrombie, you weren’t cool.”
Shoppers hold Abercrombie & Fitch shopping bags outside the store in London, UK, in 2010. Credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images
But behind the aura of exclusivity was a policy of, well, exclusivity. In a precursor to today’s influencer marketing, the label preyed on handsome employees and looked to sororities and sororities for models and retail staff — a cool-kids-only strategy backed by a tacit understanding of whose appearance qualifies as “all- American.” Former staff members reveal internal guidelines that just aren’t racially explicit, though descriptions of dreadlocks as “unacceptable,” for example, made the implications clear enough for one ex-recruiter, who says, “It wasn’t not racist.”
The company declined to comment on specific allegations in the documentary, although current CEO Fran Horowitz told CNN in a statement, “We own and confirm there were egregious and inappropriate actions under former leadership,” adding that the company is now “a place of belonging.”
“We have evolved the organization, including making management changes, prioritizing representation, implementing new policies, overhauling our shopping experiences and updating the fit, size and style of our products. ” she said.
Models from Abercrombie & Fitch at the opening of the brand’s store on 5th Avenue in New York. Credit: David Pomponio/FilmMagic/Getty Images
‘Are we excluded? Absolute’
The company faced allegations of misconduct at the turn of the millennium. In 2003, a group of former employees and job applicants sued Abercrombie & Fitch for discrimination. Several of the accusers appear in the Netflix documentary to reiterate longstanding claims that black, Asian-American and Hispanic workers were forced to work shorter hours, were fired or forced into backrooms because of their appearance.
Abercrombie settled the lawsuit in 2004, paying approximately $40 million to his accusers. And while the company never pleaded guilty in the case, it did agree to a non-binding consent decree in which a court oversaw improvements in its recruiting, recruiting and marketing practices. While there were clear improvements in diversity on Abercrombie’s store floors, the company would later face the Supreme Court after a Muslim American woman, Samantha Elauf, alleged she refused a job in 2008 because she wore a headscarf. The court ruled 8-1 in her favor.
Samantha Elauf outside the US Supreme Court, which voted in her favor in a case alleging that Abercrombie & Fitch violated discrimination laws by not hiring her for wearing a headscarf, a symbol of her Muslim faith. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
What’s shocking about the documentary, however, isn’t just the nature of the allegations — many of which have long been in the public domain — but also how long it took for a settlement to arrive.
Former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, Mike Jeffries. Credit: Netflix
The comments then went almost unnoticed. It would be well into the next decade before Jeffries’ quote — and the brand’s history of problematic marketing and advertising — became more of a corporate liability. But when a young and socially conscious generation of customers noticed, the floodgates opened.
The following year, Jeffries stepped down as CEO amid declining sales, paving the way for another rebranding exercise. But like several other documentaries that revisit disturbing elements from our not-too-distant past, “White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch” is less of an exposition of what happened under his leadership and more a reflection on what we as a society Allowed to happen. As the Asian-American students who protested the “Wong Brothers” t-shirts in 2002 would attest, objections to the brand’s behavior have always existed — only someone has finally stopped to look at them. listen.
“There were probably as many people as now who hated what we were doing, who were completely offended, who felt disengaged, who felt disregarded,” one ex-employee recalled near the end of the interview. documentary. † “But they didn’t have the platform to express it and now they have.”