The bizarre history of Abercrombie & Fitch — and how the retailer is transforming yet again
Abercrombie has transformed many times over the years.
It went from an outdoor gear shop in the late 19th century to a retailer known for oversexed, borderline-softcore pornographic ads. It was later maligned, and it looks like it's headed towards tame basics.
Abercrombie has been working to repair its reputation.
Here's the retailer's crazy journey.
What's next for the wildly polarizing brand?
Meredith Lepore and Michael Thrasher contributed to this story.
Abercrombie was the place to go for hunters in the early 1900s.
According to the company's Facebook page, David T. Abercrombie founded the company's first store in 1892. It sold hunting and fishing equipment and was called David T. Abercrombie Co.
High profile lawyer Ezra Fitch bought a portion of the company in 1900, the Facebook page notes, and the company was officially called Abercrombie & Fitch by 1904. Abercrombie, who the company's history says was more "conservative," resigned in 1907, and Fitch stopped working in 1928.
By 1939 A&F was "The Greatest Sporting Goods Store In the World."
During Abercrombie's peak, customer included Ernest Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt, Bloomberg reports.
The retailer hit some road bumps along the way.
Abercrombie & Fitch ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 1977 and was acquired by Oshman's Sporting Goods.
Oshman's opened stores under the A&F banner, including the first in Beverly Hills, California, but sales were still slow.
In 1988, it was swept up by The Limited for $47 million, according to Bloomberg.
Michael Jeffries transformed A&F into a very sexy teen store.
Limited Brands brought in Michael Jeffries in 1992, Bloomberg notes.
Jeffries is known for the racy, scandalous tropes with which many of us associate the brand.
He took the apparel in a very preppy, casual direction but tried to retain some of the original brand's outdoorsy (albeit, partially naked) appeal into the marketing.
The company went public in 1996.
The company expanded like crazy, becoming a go-to destination in malls across America.
The company had had nearly 1000 units by thee early 2010s, including its Hollister stores.
The company hit its cultural zenith in 1999.
LFO, a pop/rap group comes out with the single "Summer Girls" in 1999 that includes the lyrics: "I like girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch, I'd take her if I had one wish."
The song spent four weeks at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year.
Wearing Abercrombie was a sign you were cool in the early aughts.
Its mix of classics and contemporary pieces created a big following — at the time.
The store was known for denim and basic shirts including tees, tanks and sweatshirts — all of which were emblazoned with its signature logo.
Parents loathed the racy, hypersexual catalog.
The A&F catalog is arguably one of the most talked-about advertising vehicles in history. Parents hated its blatant sexuality, which is in part why kids were drawn to it.
It added new brands to its roster.
In 1998 A&F launched abercrombie for ages 7 through 14, and in 2000 it opened its subsidiary, Hollister.
In 2004, the brand launched Ruehl 248, which Bloomberg says was the only Abercrombie subsidiary permitted to sell black apparel. However, Bloomberg also notes that the store folded five years later.
In 2008, it started its underwear and loungewear store Gilly Hicks. But in 2013,The New York Post reported that Abercrombie & Fitch had plans to close Gilly Hicks stores.
Abercrombie hit some controversial roadblocks. In 2002, the company received backlash for products that were perceived as offensive.
People walk by an Abercrombie & Fitch Co store in Pasadena
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, in 2002 Abercrombie & Fitch received substantial public backlash from Asian Americans for T-shirts featuring caricatures with slanted eyes and rice-paddy hats.
The company was soon in hot water for other transgressions — namely, those regarding who it chose to hire — and not hire.
There was a class action lawsuit filed against Abercrombie & Fitch in 2003, alleging the company engaged in discriminatory hiring practices against African American, Latino and Asian American applicants.
The complaint claimed store managers were instructed to deny that their store was hiring if applicants didn't fit the "A&F look," amongst other illicit practices.
In November of 2004, Abercrombie & Fitch agreed on a settlement and was required to pay $40 million to applicants and overhaul its hiring practices.
Michael Jeffries became notorious.
In a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries said that his business was built around sex appeal. These comments rendered him notorious.
"It’s almost everything. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that," Jeffries said.
Jeffries also told Salon that the brand was intentionally exclusive.
"In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids," he told the site. "Candidly, we go after the cool kids. 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."
In 2013, Abercrombie acquiesced and started offering larger sizes.
The brand was known for not offering larger sizes for women, but the company balked inlate 2013 and agreed to stock larger sizes. However, the company still utilizes very thin models in its ad campaigns.
Jeffries was out in 2014.
Jeffries left in 2014, following 11 straight quarters of same-store sales declines.
"It has been an honor to lead this extraordinarily talented group of people," Jeffries said in a statement.
"I believe now is the right time for new leadership to take the company forward in the next phase of its development," he said.
Abercrombie's sales were still falling.
Abercrombie & Fitch clothes on display in 2003
The preppy clothing that had made the brand famous had also given the brand a bad reputation and sent sales plummeting.
Nike usurped the brand as a teen favorite.
Abercrombie has been faced with several lawsuits .
This past summer, the company was facing a lawsuit from over 62,000 former and current salesclerks who claim they lost wages for needing to purchase mandated apparel to wear to work.
Abercrombie also came under fire after rejecting a Muslim teen for a job because she needed to wear a hijab. The case went to the Supreme Court, and the court ruled in her favor.
Abercrombie has abandoned its controversial "look policy."
The company overhauled its stringent "hot" salesclerk policy in 2015, although some loose rules still apply ("They still can’t wear extreme makeup or jewelry, but the rules are gentle, Lindsay Rupp of Bloomberg wrote).
The company also got rid of its famous in-store shirtless models.
Amid continually poor sales, Abercrombie attempted to be tamer. But instead, it looked like it was having an identity crisis.
In 2014, company said it would begin tophase out logos.
Earlier this year, its website demonstrated the mindset of an out-of-touch retailer that was scrambling to keep up with fast fashion and athleisure brands. (And there were still logos.)
Abercrombie and Fitch made other changes at the executive level.
Abercrombie & Fitch's latest selections don't have logos, representing a major shift in the retailer's strategy.
New creative director Katia Kuethe joined the company from Lucky Magazine in summer 2015. Arthur Martinez is now the company's chairman.
Kuethe's appointment, in particular, was viewed as a step towards ameliorating the brand's woes.
In fall 2015, it appeared that the brand was destined for a comeback.
The brand's fall collection rendered the brand nearly unrecognizable — even cool.
Abercrombie officially earned its fashion-industry gold star when the popular blog Man Repeller deemed it to, yes, be cool again.
"What "the new Abercrombie" no longer has is that recognizable-from-anywhere A&F look; no iconic silhouette for similar high street brands to emulate. That day is gone," wrote Amelia Diamond for Man Repeller. "But for a brand that once pushed away its customers by strategically making others feel excluded, this new open-arms style similar to Zara or H&M — Come in on a whim and possibly leave with an outfit for tonight!— is a smart move.
Abercrombie debuted a new, tame ad campaign in fall 2015.
The campaign starred Neelam Gill.
In a release obtained by Business Insider, the brand said it has "re-worked classic staples for fall that showcase a new direction in design, focused on quality and style."
Abercrombie is now targeting an older, more socially conscientious consumer.
It's worth noting that Abercrombie & Fitch is now targeting an older consumer, someone 18 to 25, chairman Arthur Martinez told Business Insider in a phone interview this fall — hence the dramatic shift in marketing.
Sales are getting better, but it still has a long way to go.
In the company's most recent quarter, comparable sales in the United States still fell 3%, but that's still better than the staggering declines from the previous two quarters.
The company said in a statement that these results were "the strongest validation yet that our initiatives are working."
It's apparent that the post-Jeffries-era Abercrombie is beginning to thrive, albeit, slowly. The brand faces ample challenges.
"Clearly, it's a challenging environment," Moody's analyst Mike Zuccaro told Business Insider in November. "It's a competitive marketplace, there's a lot of alternatives for consumers. So you've got to have product that resonates with the consumer at a price that the consumer perceives as having good value."
"It's continued sequential improvement, based on the initiative the company has been implementing," Zuccaro said. "But again, it's a challenging environment."
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