Surely you will remember Abercrombie & Fitch, we were all fans and each of us entered at least once the famous shop in the center of Milan in Via Giacomo Matteotti just to experience the thrill of the American dream.
Years ago, Abercrombie was the trendiest store with sales assistants-models, loud music, low lights and an invasion of perfume. Feeling like Hawaii! This was the strongest point of the brand, the experience in the store. Many probably will also have queued up to enter it… Guilty! I’m one of them.
But we haven’t heard from Abercrombie in a while. What happened? In the last years, the brand has fallen into oblivion, this is because trends changed but the brand didn’t! Big mistake! In the Netflix documentary “White Hot, The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch” this point is well explained.
The selection of sales assistant was based primarily on their appearance, overshadowing the real skills and qualifications needed to be a real sales associate. In addition, most of the clothing ran small and only a few large sizes were present, thus excluding all curvy people.
The brand wanted to embody the ideal cool American: the classic white guy with blond hair, young and super sportive. Not surprisingly, on the Abercrombie bags was depicted the naked torso of a guy accompanied by the logo. Dressing Abercrombie meant being cool. Who didn’t want to be cool?
All this could have worked in 2018 but in 2022, in today’s society the watchword is inclusivity and all this doesn’t work anymore. Nowadays, these issues are super sensitive and ,most of all, important factors during the buying decision, especially for us Millennials and Gen Z.
But not everything seems lost… Thanks to the new manager Fran Horowitz, it seems that the brand is evolving in the right direction, showing more inclusive campaigns and producing sizes that reach the 3XL. We will see…
