Abercrombie feeling the pinch?

A man gives away clothes to the homeless and makes a video of it. Nothing massively unusual in that so far – some people need to record themselves doing good. In fact some need to record themselves doing pretty much anything, but that’s a different story.

So this video gets set to music and uploaded to You Tube – still nothing odd, plenty of people do that too. So why has this upload got nearly 400,000 hits? More importantly why will it have some of the world’s most highly paid brand managers squirming at their desks and surreptitiously checking the job pages?

Image taken from entertainment.ie

This video is an attempt at brand takedown and it’s targeted at one company: Abercrombie and Fitch. Looking deeper this isn’t done solely for the amusement of the US filmmaker and blogger Greg Karber. No, he’s reacted to some of the most aggressive branding on the planet; Abercrombie and Fitch’s ongoing ‘Our clothes are for cool and beautiful people.’ To Karber and, judging by comments and likes for his video on You Tube many others, A&F has crossed a line. Specifically CEO Mike Jeffries has crossed this line by spelling out what his brand has been saying for years; that his clothes are for the young and beautiful. However he recently went further – by explaining that the clothes were not for the fat, ugly and uncool, in his words: “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” Just to prove the point, A&F does not stock clothes in plus-sizes, even in the US where over a third of adults are obese.

These comments are bad enough for some, but it’s not this which has set off a one-man internet campaign. It’s the revelation that Abercrombie and Fitch would rather burn damaged clothes than donate them to homeless charities. So stand up Greg Karber to say: “I am Spartacus, though not in the buff-gladiator sense as then I’d now be modeling for A&F.” Greg went out on the streets of LA, bought old A&F clothes for a fraction of a marketing executive’s daily salary and handed them out to understandably appreciative, unphotogenic homeless people. He’s tapped into a well of sympathy from people incensed that a big corporate should put its brand before charity, not to mention many of its existing and potential customers. This story has gone viral and no-one’s standing up for Jeffries.

Now is the time for the revenge of the nerd and the numbers are on their side of the dweebs. The truth is that if a designer relies on all its clientele being model-thin and toned, it is pitching for a tiny percentage of the population. Aspiration – making people want to look and feel like the beautiful people is one thing – but spelling out that you’re not welcome if you don’t match up is another matter entirely. The A&F brand will only suffer if the charge that these are clothes for nasty people sticks.

The bitter irony here? 68-year-old Mike Jeffries looks like a man who lost a fight with a plastic surgeon and got a shiny new suit as a consolation prize. A video of him being kicked out of one of his own shops would truly be an internet hit to savour.