Sunday 8 September 2013

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO's ugly quest for attractive "cool kids"


Hi everyone. This week, I suggest you an adapted news article about the infamous Abercrombie & Fitch brand. Follow the instructions and enjoy!

1) Listen to the podcast   - DON'T READ


2) Listen again and take notes of what you understand.
3) Read the text and look for the underlined words in a dictionary
4) Read again and listen to the podcast at the same time.
5) Answer the questions at the end of this note, as well as the opinion questions. You can comment the article with your answers.

This week, a mother from Washington DC took her three daugthers’ Abercrombie & Fitch clothes and returned them to the firm’s chief executive, Mike Jeffries, with a note explaining that she wouldn’t let her kids shop at his stores anymore.

Why was she so angry?

Last week, Business Insider reported that Abercrombie refuses to make large-sized clothing, because Jeffries wants «thin and beautiful» people shopping in his store. «He doesn’t want his customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing his clothes». «As far as Jeffries is concerned, America’s unattractive, overweight or otherwise undesirable teens can shop elsewhere.»

Jeffries is quoted as saying « In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-America 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. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody either.»

However, nowadays, fast fashion retailers such as H&M and Forever 21 do a pretty good job of exciting fashion customers of all ages and sizes. And - no big surprise - they have been stealing market share from Abercrombie & Fitch.

From a fashion point of view, Abercrombie is a lame label. Although it sounds vaguely English, Abercrombie is a reinvented hunting and fishing creator based in Ohio. It is not what you can call a design house. It is just a retailer of relatively boring overpriced clothes tarted up for teens.

The company always seems to be in the middle of some scandal or controversy: Its catalog photos are too suggestive, it’s selling thong underwear to pre-teens, and they are in court for forcing less attractive and minority employees to work behind the scenes rather than on the floor.

So, while there is nothing particularly original going on style-wise at Abercrombie, there is a certain genius for developing the anxiety of youngsters who want to be considered cool by their peers.

Supposedly, it’s an anxiety that CEO Jeffries, now in his late 60’s, never outgrew. «Jeffries wants desperately to look like his target customers, and in that pursuit he has aggressively transformed hismelf from a classically handsome man into a cartoonish physical specimen: dyed hair, perfectly white teeth, golden tan, building biceps, wrinkle-free face, and big Angelina Jolie lips.»

Still trying to be one of the cool kids, I guess.



Adapted from L.A. Now, article by Robin Abcarian, May 11th, 2013


Questions:

1) Why was the mother so angry?
2) Why does Abercrombie exclude non-attractive people?
3) Why does the journalist think that Abercrombie is a lame label?
4) What kind of controversy or scandal is the company in the middle of?
5) What does Jeffries look like?

Opinion questions:
1) Did you know Abercrombie & Fitch? Have you ever been to one of their shops?
2) Is this company the reflection of today's world?

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