Mr. Handsome Caught in a Shitstorm

The U.S. clothing chain Abercrombie & Fitch is considered a young and ultrahip brand. Its store interiors have an atmosphere similar to a combined discotheque and fashion runway, all helped along by beach party-like background music, opaque windows, plastic palm trees and an almost pungent, sweet-smelling mist that envelops the customers.

Mike Jeffries, the Biff Tannen look-alike CEO of this clothing chain of well over 1,000 stores, is especially keen on maintaining this image of eternal beauty, youth and perfection. He seldom gives interviews, but when this 68-year-old does speak, his words often produce a lot of head shaking, such as in the interview where he said that A&F would employ only good-looking people in its outlets because, in his words, “We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends.”

Mr. Jeffries went on to describe A&F’s preferred customer base: “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. A lot of people don’t belong, and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” That was in 2006.

Only Big Males Fit the A&F Image

The reason his 2006 quote is back in the news is because, unlike many of its competitors, the chain refuses — and has always refused — to carry large sizes for women. In contrast, A&F caters to very large males, offering XXL sizes for football and basketball players. This exclusionary policy, along with the advertising appearance of an arrogant and smug Jeffries led to the Internet backlash.

The shitstorm against A&F was precipitated by a YouTube video in which producers James DeLorean and Daniel Lisi depict the company and its CEO in an unflattering light. That led to an anti-marketing campaign on Twitter under the hashtag #FitchtheHomeless, in which they ask A&F to donate clothing to the needy, as they do in the video, instead of throwing it away.

The resulting shitstorm apparently hit Abercrombie & Fitch where it lives: On Thursday, Jeffries walked back his earlier comments on A&F’s Facebook page, where he complained that the seven-year-old quotation had been taken out of context and that the company is “completely opposed to any discrimination, bullying, derogatory characterizations or other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics.”

If we can take Mr. Jeffries at his word, it may not be long before we see him appear as a model in his own commercials.