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Losing Weight

Should You Lose Weight For Abercrombie & Fitch?

Should You Lose Weight For Abercrombie & Fitch?

  • May 27, 2013 8:41 pm
  • 8 comments

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Author evilcyber visit my website

Fashion company Abercrombie & Fitch’s CEO Mike Jeffries stirred up public outcry after flat out declaring that overweight people don’t belong in his company’s clothes. Does he have a point?

You Don’t Belong

So far Abercrombie & Fitch, if at all, only registered on the very boundaries of my attention radar, located somewhere in the same area as solar eclipses as seen from Mars or the mating habits of sea cucumbers – I store those bits of information but don’t think much about them.

A&F, to me, was a company that simply sold clothes on the principle of creating a faux exclusive in-club, their style imitating Tommy Hilfiger, who in turn imitated Ralph Lauren, who imitated Brooks Brothers, who imitated Savile Row. Why should anyone care about a company that is a xerox squared? Especially when its CEO Mike Jeffries makes statements like these in an interview with salon.com:

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. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.

That’s why 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.

When you read this and then look at a photo of the man, one can only wonder on what grounds he considers himself suitable to wear his own brand and why, given that discrepancy, anyone could possibly give a fig about his opinion.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not so much, a lot of people do, which to me simply is a sign of Jeffries’ marketing strategy working:  here is a brand that not only advertises with attractive people, no, it even demands of its customers to be attractive. The club that lets in anybody is not very desirable to get into.

Is Jeffries Right?

In a way that is actually more honest than a whole lot of advertising: Jeffries matter-of-factly states that it’s not Abercrombie & Fitch’s clothes that make you attractive on their own, you have to be attractive in the first place. It is quasi the direct opposite of companies like Apple or Calvin Klein, who sell people the illusion that buying one of their products gives them the aura of being cool, good-looking, intellectual and sophisticated.

Jeffries, as much as I have an aversion against the man, is simply brutally honest in calling out overweight people, and I wonder if we couldn’t do with a bit more of that honesty.  Not because we direly need more people judged attractive by the standards of Mike Jeffries, but because being overweight is a serious health risk.

Picture courtesy of Daniel Spils.

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Latest Comments

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8 Comments

  1. Dr. J says:
    May 28, 2013 at 8:02 pm

    I admire you for taking a risky position on this, EC!

    As I understand it, in Japan it is very hard to find larger sized clothes anywhere.

    Obesity is a serious economic and health problem. As the elephant in the room it must be addressed, with clothes or without!

    Reply
    • evilcyber says:
      May 29, 2013 at 3:39 pm

      Exactly. I don’t value Jeffries or A&F very highly, but the indignation his comments caused do seem to be a bit misplaced.

      Reply
  2. Cindy says:
    May 28, 2013 at 9:37 pm

    I have to say what I don’t like about the words of Mike Jeffries is the implication that only good looking people are cool, popular and have a great attitude. I’m fat I can’t wear any popular brands of clothes and I have no problem with companies marketing to whatever group they want to. Go where the money is! Just don’t try to tell me who I am and what I am like based on the size of my hips. It’s just not right try to make me the monster that everybody is supposed to run away from just so you can sell some clothes.

    Reply
    • evilcyber says:
      May 29, 2013 at 3:41 pm

      I don’t think anyone is trying to make you a monster, but being overweight is a health risk. Jeffries was not very tactful about it, but I do believe that the ideas of the “fact acceptance” movement are as problematic.

      Reply
  3. Moon says:
    May 28, 2013 at 9:43 pm

    Abercrombie? Isn’t that the new official brand of the homeless?

    Reply
    • evilcyber says:
      May 29, 2013 at 3:43 pm

      I was under the impression that at the moment it’s the brand of the indignated 😉

      Reply
  4. Razwell says:
    July 3, 2013 at 9:34 pm

    Blaming victims of obesity MAKES NO SCIENTIFIC SENSE AT ALL says Dr. Jeffrey Friedman. It is as scientifically erroneous as erroneous can possibly be. COMPLETE MISUSE and ABUSE of the First law of Thermodynamics.

    I have spoken with TOP physicists such Dr. Susskind and Dr. Tyson. Intenet Bloggers MISUSE thermodynamics.

    Reply
    • evilcyber says:
      July 3, 2013 at 10:29 pm

      Nobody blames the victims; what we are talking about here is social pressure. If it doesn’t work, then why did social pressure curb the rate of smokers?

      Reply

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