Now who could've guessed that Abercrombie & Fitch started out in 1892?As a brand that covers clothing and accessories for people of all sorts, Abercrombie & Fitch expanded itself to five different sub-brands to cater to kids, teens, college students, post-college people, and women's lingerie: Abercrombie, Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, Ruehl No. 925 and Gilly Hicks respectively.
That's not the subject of today's entry though.
Abercrombie & Fitch is a well-known brand, but fashionable designs contribute to probably only half of their fame. What makes A&F talked about are the numerous controversies revolving around the name Abercrombie & Fitch.
- They had this magalog (A&F Quarterly magazine-catalog) before that had nude and semi-nude pictures of models pages apart from the actual products. This was supposedly restricted to adult readers only, but was easily accessible to teens alike.
- Minority employees of A&F claimed that likable positions in the company were offered only to white men. This raised a lot of issues regarding discrimination against minority.
- Abercrombie & Fitch's products are controversial in themselves:
- Shirts featuring prints that depicted racial discrimination
- A&F released thongs for young girl that featured provocative messages
- Shirts that had stereotypical messages on them
- Products that was claimed by Christian schools to have "an unusual degree of antagonism to the name of Christ"