2/29/08

Article: The Man Behind Abercrombie and Fitch
By: Benoit Denizet- Lewis

This article caused me to have some disregard about what goes on behind the scenes of some high fashioned stores such as Abercrombie and Fitch. Hearing about the CEO of A &F Mike Jefferies being a 61 year old man who dresses preppy, tans, whitens his teeth, wears flip flops, and dyes his hair, actually struck me as a bit odd and disturbing. Some of the comments that he states in the article have to make not only myself but others wonder what the man is thinking sometimes. He contradicted himself with the comments he made, for example about the younger middle school girls thongs. It is amazing how much such companies dwell on things such as image, labels and popularity. I feel as though clothing stores really set up so many stereotypes. We distinguish between people at times by the things they wear and the places they shop. Along with that, when it comes to getting jobs at these different stores like A &F you can only get hired if you are good looking and give off the right look. In my opinion who is to really say that someone is good looking or not? A 61 year old man? It all seems a bit ridiculous. When you look at the models and the clothing that is in the store you can see where all of these stereotypes arise from. The A & F website is a perfect example of this http://www.abercrombie.com. It shouldn't be that just by looking at a stores website you can figure out what type of people wear the clothes, the clothes should just look like they are for anyone. Now this doesn't mean that you shouldn't advertise the style for example surf clothes versus conservative, it just means the actual people who wear the clothes. They should not all look the same with perfect bodies, perfect faces, and just lead that perfect life.