A&F: Assholes and F%kwads

I am not one to wear clothing with logos on it, so you’d be hard-pressed to find me in a Nike shirt, or Adidas, or any jean other than Levis—their tag is iconic, and also so small that it doesn’t count as Walking Billboard Clothing.

And I have never worn anything from Abercrombie & Fitch. I have, as any well-intentioned gay man has, taken a look at their homoerotic catalogue, where young men frolic half-dressed to sell …. Something. But I don’t wear their clothing because, as I have said about these kinds of clothing stores, and designers , in the past: If you’d like me to advertize for you, then cut me a check for advertising, but don’t expect me to pay you for the privilege of advertizing your stores.

But then I heard this story about Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, and suddenly I have yet another reason to not wear their clothing. See, Jeffries is a dick. And an asshat. He says that, basically, he only wants to sell his clothes to pretty, thin people, and anyone of any other size, well, keep moving on to the Ugly Fat People Store down the block:

“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.”—Mike Jeffries

And to make sure that only the right-sized people wear the A&F brand, heretofore known as Assholes & Fuckwads, Jeffries enthusiastically supports the company’s size restrictions. Now, that doesn’t mean much for the guys because their stores do offer the XXL size for those big muscular jock types, but, for women, that means no pants above size 10 and no shirts or dresses above a large. 

You’re too fat for Assholes & Fuckwads, apparently.

They do, however, offer, ‘extra small’ for those clients who are pretty and way-too-thin.

And now it seems that their attitude is hurting business. According to Ashley Lutz of Business Insider, “While a specialty retailer like Abercrombie can’t be expected to appeal to everyone, the brand’s standard of beauty is quickly becoming stale. Plus-sized is no longer a niche market: 67 percent of the apparel purchasing population fit that label, and the number is growing all the time.”

And so it seems that A&F stores are rapidly disappearing from malls and shopping centers because, rather than change their sixing policies, they’d apparently prefer to close up shop, which might be a plus-sized-fabulous thing to do considering that A&F has yet another disgusting policy.

Recently in an interview with an A&F District Manager—who has wisely requested anonymity—he revealed that “any clothing that has any type of blemish, including things such as a stitch missing or a frayed fabric, gets sent back to the company for immediate disposal."

Now, A&F has had many requests by non-profit organizations to have the ‘blemished’ clothing donated to areas of need but the company refuses: "Abercrombie and Fitch doesn't want to create the image that just anybody, poor people, can wear their clothing. Only people of a certain stature are able to purchase and wear the company name."

Yes, folks, if you aren’t pretty and thin, A&F doesn’t want you in their soon-to-go-the-way-of-the-dinosaur stores, and if, heaven forbid, you are a poor person, you cannot even purchase damaged, blemished, frayed A&F clothes because what would that say about the company.

Oh, it says loads about them, I tell you.

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