Fitch | katenews2day

Abercrombie & Fitch, 720 5th Avenue at 56th Street (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Daily Mail reported on May 7 Mike Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, that he does not want large people to shop in his store but only “thin and beautiful people.” A&F clothing come up to size 10 or large for women and XXL for men, a consideration for jock-type men with XXL biceps.

In a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries revealed their target market and that’s the popular and “the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [ in our store ].Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

The clothing wear Abercrombie and Fitch is popular among teenagers and their business model and their contract with their employees to keep a fit image may sound discriminatory but first of all A&F is a business and it just so happen that’s their chosen business model. A business has to create its own identity and usually the brand of “exclusivity” is a great business model. It’s marketing to people’s ego that works all the time in every business and a lot of people want to be identified as part of that “exclusive, cool” club.

Hooters cannot be asked to hire waitresses that are overweight because their business comes along with an image expected to keep and uphold. Although 67% of Americans wear size 14 or above, there are plenty of stores catering to their sizes. In the meantime, as long as nobody is walking naked outside for lack of clothing from stores to buy, leave A&F alone and let them do their job by making their “cool kids” clients happy. To end this article, I disagree with their ads which borders into a soft porn considering their target crowd are young people.