Controversy & Fitch: A History of Abercrombie's Most Flagrant F**k-Ups

Image via Complex Original

Date: 1997-2003

Sex sells, duh. A&F knew that from early on, and its self-proclaimed "magalogue," A&F Quarterly gave the retailer a reputation for selling clothes by depicting models wearing none at all. Often enlisting the services of fashion photographer Bruce Weber, ripped dudes and super-attractive girls paraded around naked in meadows, cabins, and really suggestive editorials. The Christmas 2003 edition is infamous for a page divulging on the pleasures of group sex. When A&F ceased its publication in 2003, it didn't cite backlash against the sexual content, but rather the "brand's loss of cool," per WWD. New editions were published in 2008 and 2010, but since then there's been radio silence.

Date: April 2002

In 2002 Abercrombie released a series of T-shirts with jokes like "Wong Bros. Laundry Service: Two Wongs Can Make It White" and "Buddha Bash: Get Your Buddha on the Floor." The shirts featured Asian caricatures with rice paddy hats, slanted eyes, and buck teeth. Needless to say, this didn't sit well with Asian-American communities, who protested their existence. Hampton Carney, a PR rep for A&F said "We personally thought Asians would love this T-shirt," adding their intended audience was "young Asian shoppers with a sense of humor." By that we assume he means self-hating assimilated Asians.

Date: May 2002

Sooooo... there was a time when you could buy your pre-teen sister a thong. Marinate on that for a second. Child-sized thongs. With sayings like "eye candy" and "wink wink" on them. How did these get made?

Date: June 2003

The class-action suit Gonzalez v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores accused the company of passing on minority candidates to work in their stores in favor of white candidates. However, if they were hired, former employees claimed they were relegated to "low-visibility" positions like the back of the store. Both parties reached a settlement in 2005 and A&F paid $50 million to minority employees who had been affected by discrimination.

Date: March 2004

Not content with just f**king with minorities, A&F poked fun at redneck stereotypes too. Then-West Virginia Governor Bob Wise wrote to the company himself, saying: "By selling and marketing this offensive item, your company is perpetuating an inaccurate portrayal of the people of this great state. Indeed, such a depiction of West Virginians undermines our collective efforts to communicate a positive representation of the spirit and values of our citizens."

A&F responded not by pulling the shirt from stores, but issuing a statement saying "We love West Virginia." Way to go, guys.

Date: Aug. 2005

When a teenager wasn't allowed in the fitting room to help her autistic sister try on clothes at the Mall of America A&F, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights handed the company a hefty fine for discriminating against a disabled person. The teen wasn't allowed to enter the fitting room because of a store policy meant to prevent shoplifting, but apparently there's no policy in place about "using your common sense."

Date: Nov. 2005

In response to a slew of T-shirts with slogans like "Who Needs Brains When You Have These?" referring to boobs, and "I Had a Nightmare I Was a Brunette," a group of Pennsylvania teens instituted a "girlcott" of the store. One of the teens behind the girlcott told The Chicago Tribune: "“We’re telling [girls] to think about the fact that they’re being degraded. We’re all going to come together in this one effort to fight the message that we’re getting from pop culture.”

In response, A&F left the offending tees on the shelves, simply because people were buying them (uhhhhh what?!). The company released a statement saying “Our clothing appeals to a wide variety of customers. These particular T-shirts have been very popular among adult women to whom they are marketed.” In other words... "bimbos be shoppin'!"

Date: Jan. 2006

Ah yes, the infamous interview that started it all. CEO Mike Jeffries was profiled in this 2006 Salon article, "The man behind Abercrombie & Fitch," documenting how the certified senior citizen created a multibillion dollar brand from the shell of an outdoor outfitter "by selling youth, sex and casual superiority." What came back to bite him in the ass comes later in the piece, when he says: "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." 

Jeffries continues: "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." Of his inclusionary competitors, the CEO says "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.”

Date: Sept. 2007

Score one for the creeps. A 21-year-old employee at the A&F store in Tennessee's Rivergate Mall placed a camera inside one of the dressing rooms. Kenneth Applegate II's M.O. was apparently hiding his camera in a stack of clothes and filming girls as they got changed, he got caught by one of his victims, who was 16. He denied any wrongdoing until a co-worker found his camera under a stack of clothes, footage of the 16-year-old was on the memory stick. Dude probably would've been better off if he just spent some time on decidedly-NSFW websites.

Date: June 2009

Law student Riam Dean was employed at A&F's London flagship. Dean was born without a left forearm, and has a prosthetic limb. Initially she was given permission to wear a cardigan over her standard polo and jean uniform to cover up her prosthetic limb, until someone from the "visual team" asked her to take it off in order to preserve the store's overall aesthetic. When she wouldn't she was soon relegated to the stock room, out of customer sight, for allegedly violating A&F's "Look Policy." When asked if she could work in the stock room until winter (when her long-sleeved looks would be more "acceptable"), she walked out and sued the company to the tune of approximately $40,000. 

Date: 2009

A&F has been selling its "Fierce" fragrance since 2002, so when Beyoncé tried to trademark her alter-ego, Sasha Fierce, they took her to court to prevent her from releasing her own fragrance marketed under that name and handed her a cease and desist. Despite all that, Bey managed to trademark the crap out of Sasha Fierce, probably because the judge ruled "um it's Beyoncé... BOW DOWN, Fitches."

Date: 2008-2010

In two separate instances, A&F has come under fire for letting go employees who wanted to wear their hijabs on the job. The first happened in 2008, when Samantha Elauf was fired from a Tulsa, OK store, and again in 2010, when Hani Khan was fired from a Hollister Co. store for the same exact reason. Both were told that their headscarf violated the company's "Look Policy."

Date: 2010

It's no secret that A&F doesn't exactly make all their clothes in America, but what's worse is that they landed themselves a spot in the International Labor Rights Forum's Sweatshop Hall of Shame in 2010 for suspending factory workers who were attempting to unionize, and for constantly shifting work to different factories, resulting in inconsistent work and wages for the people who make their clothes.

Date: June 2011

When A&F model Benjamin Bowers looked a little nervous in front of the lens, modeling agent Brian Hilburn advised him to masturbate on camera order to feel more relaxed. So Bowers did, Hilburn followed that up by whipping out his own one-eyed monster, causing Bowers to freak and sue the company (and Hilburn) for a million dollars. Geez, who teaches these guys how to treat models? Terry Richardson?

Date: Aug. 2011

In the least self-aware move ever, A&F offered Jersey Shore's Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino a "substantial payment" to not wear their stuff. Because you know, there are no other douchebags that wear Abercrombie. Sorrentino fired back with a lawsuit, claiming the retailer was capitalizing off his brand, by making T-shirts emblazoned with sayings like "The Fitchuation" and "GTL... You Know the Deal." Which is probably the smartest thing anyone from Jersey Shore has ever done.

Date: Apr. 2012

When A&F attempted to open a kids' store in London's Savile Row, many of its bespoke tailors took umbrage. They staged a protest with witty signs reading things like "Give Three-Piece a Chance!"  And hooray, the protest worked: London's Westminster Council deemed A&F's plans for the store "utterly unacceptable." Score one for #menswear!

Date: Oct. 2012

A&F cashier Bintou Kamara petitioned A&F last year to end unfair scheduling practices, especially "on-call scheduling" which required workers to be available to work, but didn't guarantee them hours, meaning they were unable to hold down other jobs in order to be able to pay the bills or worry about things like arranging child care. The practice pretty much took over the employees' time without any sort of promise that they would be paid for it.

Date: Oct. 2012

Wanna fly the skies with A&F? You'll have to be a young dude. After a pilot was fired and replaced with a younger person, he decided to sue the company for age discrimination. To add insult to injury, he also divulged the bizarre rules required to fly in the plane—enforced by CEO Mike Jeffries. Among them, models on-board the flight must adhere to a "no-pants rule," wearing boxer briefs, polo shirts, gloves, and flip-flops. Also, pilots are required to play Phil Collins on all homeward-bound flights. Uhhh... can you feel the weirdness coming in the air tonight?

Date: May 2013

Business Insider's Ashley Lutz reminded the world that Mike Jeffries doesn't want fat people in his clothes. In a world where brands like H&M are using plus-sized models to show off new swimwear, Jeffries' 2006 comments are definitely a little dated. In response, A&F has become the butt of the joke, from Internet memes mocking Jeffries' unattractiveness to bloggers staging their own photoshoots in response to their exclusionary stance.