Abercrombie & Fitch

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Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
Type	Public (NYSE: ANF)
Founded	1892
Headquarters	New Albany, Ohio, USA
Key people	David Abercrombie (Founder) Ezra Fitch (Co-Founder) Mike Jeffries (Chairman & CEO)
Industry	Lifestyle Apparel Stores
Products	"Casual Luxury" Apparel
Revenue	$2.021 Billion USD (2005)
Net income	$216.38 Million USD (2005)
Employees	6,900 (incl. retail 75,000+) (2005)
Website	www.abercrombie.com

Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF), is a "casual luxury" clothing retailer. A&F encompasses four brands: Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie Kids, Hollister Co., and RUEHL 925. The merchandise is sold in the brands' retail store and online. As of January 2007, the company operated 944 stores in all U.S. states except Wyoming, and six stores in Canada and plans to continue expanding in Europe, and Japan. The first European store opened in London on March 22, 2007.^[1]. Concept 5 is set to open its first store in January of 2008. The chain is headed by Mike Jeffries.^[2]

Founded in 1892, the company was for many decades mainly an elite excursion goods retailer. After many years of success, the company struggled financially from the late 1960s until it was purchased by The Limited in 1988 and repositioned as a lifestyle brand.

Contents 1 Early years 2 Abercrombie & Fitch Co. 3 Post-Ezra Fitch 4 1990-2000 - Revival of Abercrombie & Fitch 5 2000-today 6 Abercrombie & Fitch today 6.1 Marketing and management 6.2 International expansion 6.3 Flagship stores 6.3.1 abercrombie Kids 6.3.2 Hollister Co. 6.3.3 RUEHL 925 7 Lifestyle Brand 7.1 abercrombie.com 8 A&F Quarterly 9 Controversy and criticism 9.1 A&F Quarterly 9.2 Products 9.3 Employment practices 9.4 Television shows 9.5 Play and films 9.6 Songs 10 Trivia 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Early years

During the beginning of the 20th century, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. was said to be one of the most popular retail stores for New York's elite sporting expeditions^{[citation needed]}. The company was known for outfitting some of America's most influential leaders and celebrities on their sporting excursions. Every president from Theodore Roosevelt to Gerald Ford is said to have been outfitted by the company in some capacity (Teddy Roosevelt was an especially enthusiastic Abercrombie & Fitch customer, and he frequently visited the store in preparation for his African affairs). Other famous people to pass through Abercrombie & Fitch's doors include Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, John Sloan, Vivien Rendleman, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable, Harpo Marx, John Steinbeck, Tole Liberman, and author Ernest Hemingway (who is said to have bought the gun he used to commit suicide at Abercrombie & Fitch).^[3]

[edit] Abercrombie & Fitch Co.

As their company expanded, David Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch quarreled frequently due to personal differences. David Abercrombie was more conservative and was content to continue the store as it was, selling professional gear to professional outdoorsmen. Ezra Fitch, on the other hand, was more of a visionary. He was positive that the future of the business lay in expansion, selling the outdoors and its delights to more of the general public. In 1907, Abercrombie sold his share in the company to Fitch and returned to manufacturing outdoor goods. Fitch continued the business with other partners and was, for the first time, able to direct the company in a manner to his pleasing.

Fitch determined that the store ought to have an outdoor feeling. Stock was not hidden behind glass cabinets. Instead, it was displayed as if in use. He set up a tent and equipped it as if it were out in the middle of the wilds of the Adirondacks. A campfire blazed in one corner, where an experienced guide was always in attendance, imparting valuable information to interested customers. Part of Fitch's strategy to expand the company was the creation of a mail-order catalog. In 1909, Abercrombie & Fitch mailed out over 50,000 copies of its 456 page catalog, which included outdoor clothing, camping gear, articles, and advice columns. The cost of the catalog nearly bankrupt the company, but it proved to be a profitable marketing device. By 1913, the store moved to a more fashionable and easily accessible midtown address just off Fifth Avenue, expanding its inventory to include sport clothing. A&F became the first store in New York to supply such clothing to women as well as men. In 1917, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. moved yet again to a twelve-story building on Madison Avenue. The store occupied the entire available space, making it the world's largest sporting goods store. Outside, a sign proclaimed, "Where the Blazed Trail Crosses the Boulevard."

The flagship store included many different amenities. In the basement there was a shooting range, on the mezzanine there was paraphernalia for skiing, archery, skin-diving, and lawn games. The second through the fifth floors were reserved for clothing that was suitable for any climate or terrain. On the sixth floor, there was a picture gallery and a bookstore that focused on sporting themes, a watch repair facility and a golf school, fully equipped with a resident professional. The seventh floor included a gun room, stuffed game heads, and about seven hundred shot guns and rifles. The eighth floor was dedicated solely to fishing, camping, and boating. It also included a desk that belonged to a fly- and bait-casting instructor who gave lessons at the pool, which was located on the roof. The fishing section of the store alone was stocked with over 48,000 flies and over 18,000 fishing lures. The clerks hired at Abercrombie & Fitch were not professional salesmen, but rugged outdoorsmen. Talking was their pleasure and selling was performed only at the customers' insistence.

[edit] Post-Ezra Fitch

In 1928, Ezra Fitch retired from the company. Despite the change in ownership, Abercrombie & Fitch continued to expand. In 1939, it adopted the slogan, "The Greatest Sporting Goods Store in the World." By 1962, the company operated stores in Chicago (formerly Von Lengerke & Antoine, an associated sporting goods retailer since 1928), San Francisco, and a shop in the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as wintertime-only stores in Palm Beach and Sarasota, Florida; and summertime-only stores in Bay Head, New Jersey, Southampton, New York, and Hyannis, Massachusetts. The expansion continued through the 1960s and 1970s, with A&F opening new stores in upscale suburban malls in Short Hills, New Jersey (1963), Bal Harbour, Florida (1966), Troy, Michigan (1969) and Oak Brook, Illinois (1972). Despite the chain's apparent success, the company began to falter financially in the late 1960s and went bankrupt in 1977. Oshman's, a sporting goods retailer, acquired Abercrombie soon thereafter, but the company continued to struggle.

[edit] 1990-2000 - Revival of Abercrombie & Fitch

During 1988, The Limited Inc. (now called Limited Brands) acquired Abercrombie & Fitch,^[4] determined to reinvigorate the ailing brand. The Limited had been successful in rolling out new concept stores, such as Express (women's clothing), and Victoria's Secret (lingerie and beauty products). Over the next decade, Abercrombie & Fitch was carefully rebuilt as a teen apparel merchandiser by CEO Nicholas Issa.^[5]

The company began opening stores in upscale malls across America in the early 1990s, targeting teenagers and college students aged 18-24.^[6] The clothing consists of: woven shirts, denim, miniskirts, cargo shorts, wool sweaters, polo shirts, and t-shirts. The clothing produced in the 1990s was fairly consistent with the brand's preppy image and tended to be less trend-driven than today's offerings, which bear significantly less resemblance to traditional Northeastern prep school apparel. The store quickly became successful, and by the mid-1990s, there were dozens of Abercrombie & Fitch stores in the United States.^[7] Careful marketing made the brand synonymous with understated, sexy, classic casualwear.^[8] In 1996, The Limited took Abercrombie & Fitch public on the New York Stock Exchange and gradually phased out its ownership of the company.

In 1999, Abercrombie and Fitch was part of law suit on the behalf of Saipan garment workers.¹⁵Many popular brands were charged with responsibility for sweatshop conditions, including Abercrombie and Fitch.¹⁶

[edit] 2000-today

The company has opted to build only stores averaging 8,000 to 20,000 square feet (700 to 2,000 m²) in high-volume retail centers around the country. Throughout the 1990s, Abercrombie & Fitch enjoyed sales of over $400/ft² ($4300/m²) —high by retail standards—but that number has dropped significantly in recent years. As of 2003, sales were $345/ft² ($3700/m²).

In 2003, the company expanded its New Albany, Ohio, headquarters (a suburb of Columbus, Ohio)[1]. Set amid acres of forest, the compound features rustic, farm-styled structures with elements of modern architecture, a reflection of the company's outdoorsy roots. The campus includes a mess hall, fire pits, trails, a recreational center, and an Abercrombie & Fitch store, where marketing and design elements are developed. The interior design bears a likeness to the stores, furnished with dark wood and concrete floors, leather couches, and comfortably worn rugs.

In November of 2005, the company completed construction of its flagship Fifth Avenue location in New York City. The store features four-levels of selling space with dark lighting, forms (mannequins) grouped together inside glass cases (as well as vintage rifles on another level) and wood shutters that hang inside every window. Fifth Avenue is the largest store in the chain and is located on 56th Street and 5th Avenue, alongside boutiques by luxury retailers such as Fendi, Prada, and Chanel. As of August 2006, the company completed the renovation of its store in The Grove at Farmers Market in Los Angeles into their second flagship.

The company is developing a fifth concept, currently referred to as Concept Five, which is expected to be introduced in January 2008 and rumored to carry loungewear and underwear for girls. Another possiblility for the mystery concept is accessories, a niche that CEO Mike Jeffries has said he is very much interested in filling soon. While the company remains tight-lipped on the latest concept, it is rumored that the Fashion Show Mall in Las Vegas, NV, will be among its first locations along with the Natick Collection, MA^{[citation needed]}It is rumored that the name of the chain will be Gilly Hicks.^[9]

[edit] Abercrombie & Fitch today

[edit] Marketing and management

The original store concept (referred to as the "chain store" concept) hearkened back to the outdoorsy image of company's early years. The store resembled a hunting lodge, with plaid carpeting, dark wood fixtures, and antler chandeliers. However, the company introduced a new store concept (referred to as the "canoe store" concept) in the late 1990s to accommodate its rapid growth. The first canoe store opened in June 1996 in Chesterfield Mall (Store #0634) in Chesterfield (St. Louis), MO. This original canoe store, however, does not have a white wooden front like most of today's A&F stores, but rather a tan stucco front with navy awnings. Common design elements of the canoe store prototype include a moose head mounted above the cashwrap and a canoe is mounted in the main room of each canoe store. Unlike the chain store, which typically has a wider storefront and two entrances, the canoe store has one main entrance and is walled off into at least five rooms. Most of A&F's stores are (or have been remodeled to be) canoe stores, a few chain stores still exist. An example of a chain store location is at South Hills Village mall in Pittsburgh which is still a classic chain store complete with plaid carpeting and preppy wallpaper, Atrium Mall in Boston, still as original concept, as well at Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach, although all of the antler chandeliers have been taken down from the ceiling.

Abercrombie & Fitch has complete control over the design and production of its merchandise, stores, and marketing. Because it spends little on external advertising, the company depends upon the store experience to help define the brand. Not only is the store experience important, but the name brand itself is a way for them to advertise. Their logo and or the words Abercrombie & Fitch are on every item in the store. It is easily identifiable and well known. By customers wearing the clothing itself, is almost advertising enough. The company strictly regulates the store environment in an effort to provide a consistent, pleasureful experience for customers in a manner that can be replicated in each store. Factors such as visual presentation, music, and fragrance are not left to chance. The company also specifies in painstaking detail low lighting, layout, visual displays, marketing, and fixtures are to be placed and used in every store. Each store is spritzed every half hour with men’s cologne in order to ensure a pleasant sensory experience. Every store plays the same pre-produced music CD which is sent to each store. Every month stores receive a new CD and are instructed to discard the old one. The volume is set to the company regulated level and must not be changed for any reason.

Merchandising is managed in a similar fashion. Every week, each store is sent two implementation booklets, one for men and one for women, giving the exact specifications for placing merchandise on the sale floor. Older merchandise is shuffled around to provide a different presentation for frequent customers each time they enter the store, while new items are generally placed out in the front rooms for display. Apparel is laid out so that customers can feel the fabrics, contributing to the sensory experience offered in-store. Also the public is prohibited from taking any pictures, within all stores.

The company manages merchandising, distribution, and sales by assigning each store a tier level (1, 2, 3, or 4) and a volume level (A, B, C, D, E, or F). Tier level determines what selection of the current clothing line is sent to a store. Tier 1 stores receive all of the current items in all styles and colors, for example, while lower tier stores are sent less merchandise in a smaller range of sizes and colors. A store's tier level is independent of its volume, since allocation is often dependent on available area of selling space. Some small stores are relatively high volume, but lack the floor space needed to support the entire line. A store can have different tier designations for its men's and women's sides. (Women's retail normally outperforms men's by a ratio of about 2:1, though in certain markets the difference is greater or less.) The company designates Volume A stores, usually in major cities and tourist destinations, as "elite" or "super-elite." There are three super elite (AA) stores (Ala Moana in Honolulu, Aventura in Miami, and South Street Seaport in New York City) and less than thirty elite (A) stores in the chain including the new international store in West Edmonton Mall, the largest indoor mall in North America in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.^[10]

[edit] International expansion

This article or section contains information about scheduled or expected future events. It may contain information of a tentative nature and the content may change dramatically as the event approaches and more information becomes available.

The company marked its expansion into Canada in January of 2006, opening two Abercrombie & Fitch stores and three Hollister Co. stores in that country. In Fall 2006, a third Abercrombie & Fitch store opened in the Toronto Eaton Centre. The company will add additional stores in Canada during the next several years and plans to open stores in Europe and Asia.

The Company opened its first European location in London, on March 22, 2007. The store did a volume of $380,000 on its first day. Upon the opening of the store the UK market gained a dedicated website that showed the range available in the UK store priced in British Pounds. All UK users are now unable to access the US Abercrombie.com site to compare pricing between to 2 markets (some items have been priced with a direct $/£ swap as well as a hefty mark-up making them much more expensive in the UK than the US).

The company is also considering opening a flagship store in Ginza in Tokyo, Japan around 2009. Currently Abercrombie & Fitch has a large advertisement in the popular and classy Ginza District of Tokyo. The opening of the Tokyo store should lower counterfeits and importing to the country. Currently Abercrombie & Fitch clothing can be purchased at small Japanese shops for three to four times the actual cost(The American price tag is usually still on them). As the Abercrombie & Fitch brand reaches its full growth potential in the U.S., the company is depending on Hollister Co., RUEHL No.925, and Concept 5 to act as its primary growth vehicles in the U.S.

[edit] Flagship stores

This article or section contains information about scheduled or expected future events. It may contain information of a tentative nature and the content may change dramatically as the event approaches and more information becomes available.

Abercrombie & Fitch currrently operates two full flagship stores in New York and Los Angeles. There may also be plans of a Michigan Avenue flagship but no official word has been released to the public so far. The following is a complete list of flagships:

• Fifth Avenue in New York, NY - First flagship store opened.
• The Grove at Farmers Market in Los Angeles, CA - Second flagship store opened.
• 7 Burlington Gardens in Savile Row, London, England - First international flagship store which opened on March 22, 2007 at 10:00am [2]. The store generated sales of up to $280,000 in the first 6 hours after opening doors.

Abercrombie & Fitch recently leased back the Faneuil Hall (Boston), location that they moved out more than three years ago. It will be the three floors instead of the eight it previously occupied. Rumors speculate this will be a flagship store. Under Construction - October 2007

[edit] abercrombie Kids

Main article: abercrombie Kids

abercrombie is a version of the A&F brand with youth sizes, targeted at ages 7-14. The store uses the same moose logo as the adult store but the name is spelled with a lowercase "a". The merchandise is styled similar to that from the adult A&F stores, but prices are 30-40% lower. There are about 180 stores in the U.S. The store setup resembles that of the parent brand; black hardwood floors, white and grey painted walls and loud, techno/dance/pop music that the company believes creates a "classic cool" (as opposed to casual luxury) atmosphere.

[edit] Hollister Co.

Main article: Hollister Co.

Hollister Co. is a California-inspired apparel brand that attracts patrons ages 13-18 for not only its colorful clothing, but also its moderate prices which were meant to compete closer with, but still not as inexpensive as, other brands such as American Eagle Outfitters and Old Navy. Hollister stores have a worn and washed out impoverished beachside boardwalk theme, the façade resembles a dump-front shack made from driftwood, and dimly lit interior with surfboards mounted on the storefront wall and a wood floor that looks like aged western red cedar shingles. When the brand was launched in 2003, Hollister partially cannibalized Abercrombie's customer base. Clothing in Hollister stores was largely identical to that of Abercrombie & Fitch in material, construction and basic design, albeit with different logos and labels, only it was sold at noticeably lower prices. In the following years, Abercrombie & Fitch clothing began utilizing higher-grade materials and construction (and raising prices as a result), to provide more differentiation between the two stores.

[edit] RUEHL 925

Main article: RUEHL 925

RUEHL is a Greenwich Village inspired brand straight out of the heart of New York City that caters to the post-collegiate, Young Professional. Now launching in particuarly upscale locations around the nation, Ruehl stores have a brownstone, Greenwich architectural resemblance with antique windows, multiple levels and front porches. The inside is designed as a townhouse, with a central hallway separating the women and mens rooms, ending in the central checkout known as 'the Garage'. The prices at Ruehl are about 30% higher than at Abercrombie & Fitch and the brand is the first in the company to produce a leather goods line.

[edit] Lifestyle Brand

Abercrombie & Fitch aggressively positions itself as a "lifestyle brand "—a brand that tries to embody the values and appeal of a desirable way of living based on popular culture. The stores are plastered with photos of physically attractive young models, blast loud dance music through powerful speakers, and smell of the company's signature cologne, Proof. The stores are also staffed with attractive models (formerly referred to as "brand representatives"), young salespeople who embody the Abercrombie & Fitch lifestyle: attractive, athletic, popular, enthusiastic, and outgoing. For years, brand representatives were required to wear only Abercrombie & Fitch clothing, but such regulations have been loosened following lawsuits. The "Impact Team" was created in 2004 in order to better control merchandise within each store and maintain company standards. Impact Team members are less responsible for customer service and more responsible for ensuring that the sales floor is appropriately filled with merchandise from stock supply. In 2005, full-time stock positions which had been previously done away with were re-added in order to better control back-stocked merchandise. Some speculate that the Impact Team also supplies the company with better equal opportunity employment, as style and personality are less important for Impact Team members who interact less with customers.

[edit] abercrombie.com

The web designs of Abercrombie & Fitch have a modern and simple design which reflects the stores themselves. Previously to the store's Winter 2006 Fashion Season, the websites had an all dark gray background. But when the store's Winter 2006 Fashion Season hit, the website (as well as abercrombie's) changed to the simple white background web design. On March 22, 2007 abercrombie.com changed its website layout though still kept its simple white background, giving a more modern and "A&F like" style [3].

The website fetures the seasonal "A&F: New Faces" video. Previous videos featured all the A&F season models, but this one mainly focuses on the main marketing campaign model, Kris Lewin. It also has a new feature which is simlar to Mapquest in that it actually shows a map of the nearest A&F stores in an area. Shortly after its opening of it newest flagship store in Savile Row London, England on March 22, 2007, abercrombie.com was blocked to United Kingdom users and introduced a dedicated UK site. Users can now no longer compare prices between the US and UK markets. This is because UK prices are up to twice the price of the same product in the US.

Features include:

• A&F Playlist - "Hear the music from our stores", contains a selection of Dance Music from the store. This feature was previously simply named "Music".
• Store Locator - locates A&F stores within the area of the given area code.
• A&F New Faces - Features a video of the current A&F marketing campaign model, Kris Lewin.
• A&F Account - Gives members the features of:
  • receiving A&F emails
  • Keeping an A&F wish list
  • Tracking previously ordered merchandise.
  • Quick Checkout - Fills in order forms.

The above is also true for the abercrombie Kids website.

[edit] A&F Quarterly

Main article: A&F Quarterly

The most conspicuous of the company's lifestyle branding efforts was its now-defunct magazine, A&F Quarterly, which the company published from 1997 to 2003. The publication was a hybrid magazine and catalog (company officials referred to it as a "magalog"), and featured advice columns, articles about college life, and—most famously—the highly sexual work of the photographer Bruce Weber. Ironically, the Quarterly contained mostly nude models, while the clothes would often be displayed by themselves, laid on a flat surface. The racy publication made a splash with young customers and had one of the highest circulation rates among young adults of any magazine in the late 1990s. The magazine also gained a certain iconic, coffee-table status among gay men because of its heavy doses of shirtless young men and homoerotic imagery. Print advertisements for the A&F Quarterly appeared in Interview and Out magazines in addition to Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. In 1999, the company rolled out "A&F TV", a feature that spotlights young people engaged in sports and leisure activities. A&F TV was originally developed to run on cable television and on monitors in Abercrombie & Fitch stores, but was offered only on the company's website until recently.

[edit] Controversy and criticism

[edit] A&F Quarterly

Main article: A&F Quarterly

The A&F Quarterly became a lightning rod for controversy shortly after it was published. It featured photographs of male and female models, often nude, posing in pairs or groups. Despite a company policy restricting sale of the publication to adults, critics charged that the publication was readily sold to minors. Several states threatened to pursue legal action, though the company was never charged with violating any related statutes.

The publication was also criticized on moral grounds, for featuring sexually explicit interviews with porn stars, and articles that, according to critics, glamorized alcohol consumption, sex, and homosexuality. In 2003, an array of religious organizations, women's rights activists, and Asian-American groups organized boycotts and protests over the publication, and the "Christmas Edition" of the catalog was removed from stores.^[11] In 2004, "A&F Magazine", a comparatively tame collection of photos and essays about rising celebrities, replaced the publication altogether. Now several years later, the company is poised to reintroduce the catalog this summer for the 2007 back-to-school season.

[edit] Products

The company's clothing has also been the subject of criticism. In 2002, controversy erupted over shirts featuring caricatures of Asians and other ethnic groups. One shirt featured the slogan "Wong Brothers Laundry Service—Two Wongs Can Make It White" with smiling figures in conical hats, a 1900s popular-culture depiction of Chinese immigrants. The company discontinued the designs and apologized after a boycott by Asian-American student groups, such as Stanford.^[12] That same year, the children's clothing division removed a line of thong underwear sold for girls in pre-teen children's sizes after parents mounted nationwide storefront protests. The underwear included phrases like "Eye Candy" and "Wink Wink" printed on the front.

More T-shirt controversy occurred twice in 2004. The first incident involved a shirt featuring the phrase, "It's All Relative in West Virginia," an apparent jab at incest relations in rural America. West Virginia governor Bob Wise spoke out against the company for depicting "an unfounded, negative stereotype of West Virginia," but the shirts were not removed.^[13]

The second incident involved another t-shirt with the phrase "L is for Loser" written next to a picture of a male gymnast on the rings (the same shirt was worn by Tyson Ritter of The All-American Rejects in the music video for "Move Along."). The company stopped selling the shirt in October of 2004 after USA Gymnastics president Bob Colarossi announced a boycott of Abercrombie & Fitch for mocking the sport.

In November 2005, the Women & Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania launched a "girl-cott" of the store for selling T-shirts bearing phrases like "Who needs brains when you have these?" in reference to large breasts and dumb blondes. The campaign went national on NBC's The Today Show, and the company pulled the shirts from stores on November 5, 2005.^[14]

Bob Jones University and its affiliated precollegiate schools — Bob Jones Academy, Bob Jones Junior High School, and Bob Jones Elementary School — forbade Abercrombie & Fitch clothing from being "worn, carried, or displayed" on its campuses because of "an unusual degree of antagonism to the name of Christ and an unusual display of wickedness" in the company's advertising. [4]

Sometime between 2005-2006, Abercrombie and Fitch and HollisterCo discontinued offering its "clearance" items to international shoppers who were accessing the website from outside the continental United States and Canada. No reasons or comments can be found on their website. Customer Service Representatives at the A&F were not able to provide any answers to this issue.

[edit] Employment practices

For four years, Abercrombie & Fitch has faced accusations of discrimination against minority employees. A 2004 lawsuit — Gonzalez v. Abercrombie & Fitch — accused the company of discriminating against minority employees by offering desirable positions to White American employees. The company agreed to an out-of-court settlement of the class action suit. As part of the settlement terms, A&F agreed to pay US$45 million to rejected applicants and affected employees, institute policies and programs that promote diversity in its workforce and advertising campaigns, appoint a Vice President of Diversity, hire 25 recruiters to seek minority employees, and discontinue the practice of recruiting employees at primarily white fraternities and sororities.^[15]

Abercrombie & Fitch became involved in another lawsuit regarding their employee hour distribution. This came as a result of the practice of giving preferential treatment to those they "ranked" as most beautiful.^{[dubious — see talk page]}

Abercrombie & Fitch brands offer two main part-time positions — Impact Team and Model (formerly "Brand Rep"). Models primarily interact with customers, though they also are often part of updating floor sets, while Impact Team members work on store presentation.^{[dubious — see talk page]}.

[edit] Television shows

Abercrombie and Fitch was parodied for allegations of racial discrimination, high prices of its products, and its association with homosexuality on shows like Family Guy, MADtv, and The Simpsons.

The Christmas episode of the animated program The Simpsons shows the family, after getting ahold of a large sum of money, is able to go shopping at the upscale mall where A&F is parodied as "Abercrombie & Rich" for its high prices. The television show 6teen portrayed the brand in a similar manner, and showed a store named Albatross and Finch, an obvious parody of the store. It too has "hot" models and is the cool place to shop.

In season four, episode 25 of the television show Family Guy titled "Sibling Rivalry", Stewie and Brian find a black Waldo in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog spread featuring otherwise white models. MADtv ran sketches parodying the allegations against A&F of homosexuality and racial discrimination. It is implied that the white models in these sketches are gay (especially in the captions to the photos taken of them), only allowing blacks to join their group when they shout epithets against an Asian passerby.

In American dad when Stan Smith associates with the Log Cabin Republicans, he is seen sitting on the couch with an shirt that bears A&F. He also examens his nails in a way he said was not heterosexual.

Rachel Green of the popular sit-com Friends is seen, in one episode, ordering a pizza to be delivered. She requests that a certain man deliver her pizza and describes him as being "Very Abecrombie & Fitch".

[edit] Play and films

• The 1947 Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow references A&F in the song "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich", saying that the newly-"idle rich" will all be wearing "...clothes/from Abercrombie Fitch." The musical was written when A&F was still associated with the upscale WASPy lifestyle.

• In the film Another Gay Movie, a parody of American Pie and Not Another Teen Movie, and gay culture in general, one of the boys exclaims, "He sure puts the Z's in Aberzombie" referring to a boring pseudo-prep. Another character shouts "Abercrombie and Bitch!" when seeing another man naked in the film.

• During the 1967 comedy Fitzwilly, Dick Van Dyke and his band of reformed thieves pose as Abercrombie & Fitch employees and steal an entire camping display from a sporting goods convention. Later when Barbara Feldon sees the crooks in their "A&F" uniforms Dick Van Dyke claims that A&F stands for "Accommodators and Footmen".

In the popular television series The OC, which aired on the Fox network, Ryan's co-worker refers to Lukes as an Abercrombie And Fitch water polo playing bitch.

[edit] Songs

The band LFO had a song titled "Summer Girls" popular in the summer of 1999 with many references to Abercrombie and Fitch with lyrics such as "I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch," and "You look like that girl from Abercrombie and Fitch," which romanticized the brand.

Country singer Kenny Chesney released the song "There Goes My Life" which mentions the phrase "...with Abercrombie clothes" along with other items of style choice, when a daughter leaves her father to move on in life.

[edit] Trivia

• The Abercrombie & Fitch font is "Adobe Garamond Semibold".
• A&F store models are used for marketing campaign pictures.
• Bruce Weber does photography for A&F.
• Abercrombie and Fitch were the names of the trash collectors in the comic strip, Hi and Lois
• The P.G. Wodehouse novel "A Pelican at Blandings" first published in 1969, features a psychiatrist called Sir Abercrombie Fitch.
• In The Game's song "Church For Thugs" a section of the lyrics say "i spit for niggaz doin' 25 on they fifth year, ready to throw a nigga off the 5th tier, them white boys in the Abercrombie and Fitch gear, and every nigga whoever helped me to get here"
• Dwight A. McBride has written a book titled Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality, which explores greater American intergrupal relations while demonzing Abercrombie and Fitch.[5]. "In...10...provocative essays, McBride explores...points...[including] the way the hair and clothing guidelines for Abercrombie & Fitch employees ensure an almost all-white staff)."
• A&F has just introduced its most expensive jeans, "Premium Remsen Low Rise Slim Straight" for $398.00.

[edit] References

1. ^ http://library.corporate-ir.net/library/61/617/61701/items/226696/anf_011107.pdf
2. ^ http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/01/24/jeffries/index_np.html
3. ^ Grauer, Neil A. "Remembering Papa." Cigar Aficionado, July/August 1999.
4. ^ http://www.answers.com/topic/abercrombie-fitch-co
5. ^ Denizet-Lewis, Benoit. "The Man Behind Abercrombie & Fitch.Salon, 24 January 2006.
6. ^ Mitchell, Dan. "Enough Enron? There's More." The New York Times, 4 February 2006.
7. ^ Givhan, Robin. "The Fetching Men of Abercrombie & Fitch Aren't the Only Appeal Of New Marketing Campaign." The Washington Post, 7 August 1998.
8. ^ Elliott, Stuart. "Abercrombie & Fitch Extends a Print Campaign to TV." The New York Times, 6 August 1999.
9. ^ http://starpas.cc.state.az.us/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=wsbroker1/officer-detail.p?corp-id=R13393460
10. ^ Earnest, Leslie. "Towering Over Retail Rivals: Abercrombie & Fitch, helped by shifts in its strategy, saw holiday sales jump while other apparel stores dragged." The Los Angeles Times, 17 January 2006; p. C1.
11. ^ Gross, Daniel. "Abercrombie & Fitch's Blue Christmas." Slate, 8 December 2003.
12. ^ http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2003/3/4/asianStereotypesExamined
13. ^ Dao, James. "T-Shirt Slight Has West Virginia in Arms." The New York Times, 22 March 2004.
14. ^ "Abercrombie & Fitch to pull tees after "girl-cott." Reuters, 4 November 2005.
15. ^ "National Clothing Retailer Must Pay For Discrimination, The Defender, Winter 2005, 1. A publication of the NAACP LDF. Description of the settlement of Gonzalez.

15. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3638/is_9_41/ai_63058111 16. http://www.behindthelabel.org/pdf/Sweatshopfiles.pdf

[edit] External links

• www.abercrombie.com - Abercrombie & Fitch official website.
• www.abercrombiekids.com - abercrombie Kids official website.
• www.hollisterco.com - Hollister Co. official website.
• www.ruehl.com - RUEHL No.925 official website.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. Brands
Brands	Abercrombie & Fitch | abercrombie | Hollister Co. | RUEHL No.925 |
A&F People	David Abercrombie | Ezra Fitch | Mike Jeffries
Other	A&F Fragrances | A&F Quarterly | Limited Brands
Homepages (respectively from brands)	abercrombie.com | abercrombiekids.com | hollisterco.com | ruehl925.com | A&F Careers
Corporate	NYSE: ANF | Revenue: $12.784 billion | Employees: ≈ 56,900 | A&F Investors