In an interview from a few years back that has recently spread on the internet like wildfire, Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, talked about the type of people he wanted wearing his clothes. Here’s part of that conversation- “…we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.”
“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he says. “Candidly, we go after 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 clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
I guess that’s why his stores do not sell any women’s clothes bigger than a Large or a size 10.
As I was digging around online (mainly to see if this story was true) I also read a lot of the comments about the CEO. Many were directed at the physical appearance of the Mike Jeffries himself. It’s a bit ironic that people would make fun of this guy based on the way he looks while being pissed at him for only selling clothes to people that look a certain way, but I don’t think that’s really the point.
Be pissed at him for his thoughts, not his looks. This guy is an ass. If you want to attack him, then attack him for being a jerk, not his attempt to transform his 68-year-old self to a high schooler.
But, I’m glad he came out and said it. I’m happy that I have that information. Now I know one store where I will never buy a thing. Sure, it wan’t be long and my kids will care about the brand of clothes they are wearing. But I know one thing, they won’t be wearing Abercrombie. I do not want that brand or that brand’s image to influence my kids in ANY WAY.
I’m happy to say, I’ve never spent a dime there and I never will.
-Pete
Source- http://www.salon.com/2006/01/24/jeffries/
