Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The Controversial Abercrombie & Fitch

abercrombie & fitchNow who could've guessed that Abercrombie & Fitch started out in 1892?

As a brand that covers clothing and accessories for people of all sorts, Abercrombie & Fitch expanded itself to five different sub-brands to cater to kids, teens, college students, post-college people, and women's lingerie: Abercrombie, Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, Ruehl No. 925 and Gilly Hicks respectively.

That's not the subject of today's entry though.

Abercrombie & Fitch is a well-known brand, but fashionable designs contribute to probably only half of their fame. What makes A&F talked about are the numerous controversies revolving around the name Abercrombie & Fitch.

  1. They had this magalog (A&F Quarterly magazine-catalog) before that had nude and semi-nude pictures of models pages apart from the actual products. This was supposedly restricted to adult readers only, but was easily accessible to teens alike.
  2. Minority employees of A&F claimed that likable positions in the company were offered only to white men. This raised a lot of issues regarding discrimination against minority.
  3. Abercrombie & Fitch's products are controversial in themselves:
    1. Shirts featuring prints that depicted racial discrimination
    2. A&F released thongs for young girl that featured provocative messages
    3. Shirts that had stereotypical messages on them
    4. Products that was claimed by Christian schools to have "an unusual degree of antagonism to the name of Christ"
Despite all these, Abercrombie & Fitch still manages to stay as one of the leading brands when it comes to pop fashion. They continue to expand their market and come up with new flagship brands that will cater to more people from different age brackets.

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