“Don’t look at that fat girl or else she’ll walk into our store..”
If you’re a size 12 and above and hoped to shop at Abercrombie and Fitch, you’ll be disappointed to know that the brand doesn’t plan on stocking XL or XXL sizes in women’s clothing because they don’t want overweight or unattractive women wearing their brand.
Yes, meet the shallowest brand to ever hit the fashion business. Apparently, they only want “cool kids” buying their stuff, and plus-sized women are not part of that group.
Robin Lewis, co-author of The New Rules of Retail said that CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch Mike Jeffries “doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people”.
“He doesn’t want his core customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they’re one of the ‘cool kids.'”
Mr “Not-So-Beautiful” Mike Jeffries aka CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch
But it looks like the CEO never really had nice things to say about his non-existent plus-sized customers. Here are some old quotes from Jeffries himself:
“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 he wasn’t bothered by excluding some customers.
“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.”
Jeffries also finds that catering to everyone makes business boring: “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,” he told Salon.
Um..great business philosophy, Abercrombie & Fitch. Let us give you our money…Not!
