Young shop assistants walking around shirtless, a perfume that attacks the nose, deafening music… Between the 2000s and the mid-2010s, the ready-to-wear brand Abercrombie & Fitch and its unique boutiques were on the rise.
A descent into hell
But the house was also involved in numerous scandals: in 2003, a complaint for racial discrimination it had been registered by the company’s employees and the trademark did not hide it grossphobia marketing “triple 0” clothing, both sizes XXXSIt’s inside physically recruit salespeople. If during the 2010s social networks contributed to bringing to light issues related to the lack of inclusiveness in the world, the brand then experienced a descent into hell in terms of sales.
In France, while a huge store had opened on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, creating tens of minutes of queues to access it, it closed its doors permanently in 2021. The following year, In 2022, the Netflix documentary Abercrombie & Fitch: a cutting-edge brandthought back to the decline of the brand and the downfall of its maligned CEO at the time, Mike Jeffries, who resigned from his position in 2014, leaving behind a brand that had fallen into disuse. We might therefore think that Abercrombie was living his last moments. Hand.
More inclusiveness
In recent months the company has been reborn from its ashes. In 2023, it reported annual net sales rising 16% from the previous year and a 285% increase in the value of its shares on Wall Street, it reported Challenges last March. Its revenue forecast for 2024 has been revised upward, estimated at 10%, from 4-6% initially, according to data from bourse.com, tracked by 20 minutes.
The recipe for miracles? A total overhaul in 2017 started by the new brand director, Fran Horowitz. Therefore, the brand image that favors size zero is nothing more than a remnant of the past.
Abercrombie & Fitch now wants to be inclusive and also caters to a much more diverse clientele. No more mostly white, skinny models with muscular bodies. The brand now wants to highlight the models of all skin colorsand all body types. A renewal that is also reflected in the clothes sold, which they are now sold up to XXXLsomething that didn't happen before, given that the brand stopped at size 38. So making a brand more inclusive for customers works.
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Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
