Do you remember her? Abercrombie & Fitch changes and returns with momentum to the fashion industry

Abercrombie & Fitch was back in the headlines recently after the fashion brand’s former CEO, Mike Jeffries, was arrested for sex trafficking and interstate prostitution. The businessman was released after paying bail of ten million dollars (approximately R$57 million), as was his partner, Matthew Smith. Under the same charges, he had to pay US$500,000 (R$2.84 million) to be released.

Another reason why Abercrombie & Fitch — led to success by Jeffries, who led it for 22 years — became a topic this year was its return to action, after being profoundly reconfigured. And, judging by the numbers, it came back with a bang.

In May, the company’s shares rose 24.32% on the New York Stock Exchange, exceeding estimates for the first quarter of 2024 and reaching an appreciation rate of 115%. This is the biggest gain in A&F shares since August 2023 on the same exchange. The gain of one billion dollars (R$5.80 billion), in turn, represents the label’s sixth consecutive increase in quarterly revenue.

But what led a brand founded 132 years ago and which became one of the most iconic and popular of the 1990s and 2000s, dressing celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher in marketing campaigns, to simply disappear?

American style

“I like girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch”, sing the boys from the boy band LFO in “Summer Girls”, one of the biggest pop hits of 1999. “I’d have one if I could make a wish.”

The mention of the label in the song is, today, seen as a symbol of its consolidation as a pop hit in its own right. Known for their low-waisted jeans, advertising full of lean, muscular models — who, ironically, were sometimes portrayed with little or no clothing at all — and dark stores, with electronic music playing at deafening volumes and shirtless salespeople at the door, the The brand’s pieces became essential for anyone who wanted to be “cool”.

Their clothes may not be that different from those sold by competitors such as Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren and Guess, but they were cheaper alternatives, which university students could buy on their trips to shopping centers, then consumer meccas.

The style was “preppy”, that is, starched, casual and reminiscent of the country’s highest economic classes in the university environment — in addition to jeans, polo t-shirts, sweaters and sweatshirts made up the brand’s displays, all produced with noble materials.

The erotic appeal of advertising was crucial to the popularization of Abercrombie. Even the shopping bags in stores featured a man with a muscular chest and six-pack on display.

The brand, therefore, did not just sell clothes, but the supposed lifestyle of rich college students and members of fraternities and sororities — an ideal world in which everyone is rich, sexy, partying and, of course, white.

The famous photographer Bruce Weber, whose CV includes shoots for Calvin Klein, Armani and Louis Vuitton, was responsible for the idyllic — and sometimes homoerotic — black-and-white images in the campaigns.

Several former employees, models and journalists interviewed for the documentary Abercrombie & Fitch: Rise and Fall, released by Netflix in 2022, claim that these were disclosures based on social exclusion.

In stores, the situation was not that different. A&F had a book with guidelines for hiring employees. In practice, they should look similar to the models. Dreadlocks —recurrent in several countries as part of indigenous and African cultures—, for example, were expressly prohibited.

If they were not compatible with these parameters, employees were assigned tasks in the back of the stores, away from the public who visited them.

Jeffries remodeled the label for teenagers, launched a line of products for children and pre-teens — Abercrombie Kids — and, in 2000, the subsidiary Hollister Co., whose style resembles that of Californian surfers.

It worked — a lot. In 2001, A&F reported a profit of one and a half billion dollars (R$8.8 billion at current prices), which represented, at the time, an increase of 32% compared to the previous year. In 2003, the profit rate had already risen to US$2.6 billion (R$5.74 million), 20% more than in 2002.

Before they became famous, names like Olivia Wilde, Penn Badgley, Channing Tatum, January Jones and Kellan Lutz posed for campaigns.

Not even the cultural changes of the 2000s and 2010s made Jeffries review the hiring and marketing policies implemented by him and his team — even when A&F was the target of lawsuits and media scandals because of them.

In 2004, for example, a lawsuit filed jointly by former Latino, Asian and black employees forced the company to compensate them in an out-of-court settlement and to include models and racial minority employees in its hiring and advertising guidelines. respectively.

The legal action led to the creation of a D&I (diversity and inclusion) department that is today seen as a pioneer. The changes, however, were superficial.

Another lawsuit against the company became the subject of newspaper pages. In 2009, also in the United States, a teenager was not hired for wearing a hijab — the scarf that covers the head worn by Muslim women — and won, in 2015, the case against the brand in the Supreme Court, alleging discrimination.

In 2013, an interview with Jeffries with Salon magazine went viral on social media in which he stated that A&F was only for “pretty” and “cool” kids. “We’re going after American kids who are full of attitude and friends,” he said. “Many people don’t belong [à nossa marca] and cannot belong. Are we exclusive? Absolutely.”

Jeffries resigned in December 2014, saying the time had come for a new CEO to take the company forward. Approximately a month earlier, according to an analysis published by the Reuters news agency, sales had fallen from one billion dollars (R$5.76 billion) to US$911.4 million (R$5.25 billion). US$60 million (R$346 million) was earned below what was projected for that period.

Also according to Reuters, in August 2014 the value of A&F shares had fallen by 8.5%. Jeffries had asked for the logo to be reduced to “virtually nothing” on the brand’s pieces.

Photographer Bruce Weber, in turn, began to be accused of sexual harassment by models.

At that time, the label had already become synonymous with scandal. His downfall had finally begun.

And this happened because of poor management, says Katherine Sresnewsky, professor and curator of the fashion and luxury hub at the Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing, ESPM, in an interview with F5.

“They didn’t listen to the audience, who asked for larger sizes and body diversity, but they didn’t listen,” he says. “In a more structured way, this means doing research all the time to be more competitive.”

Lorena Borja, professor at the Istituto Europeo di Design, IED, has a similar view. She emphasizes that brands must be good translators of culture. We are no longer in the times when they guided consumers. The current dynamics today are the opposite of this.

“It’s important to understand the consumer. They are investing in the brands they most identify with and digital helps them understand whether they are really delivering what they say,” he says. “People are saying what they want from brands. People don’t have to dress fashion, fashion has to dress people.”

New times

The brand had already undergone several changes since its founding in 1892, but none of them were as dramatic as those that occurred under Jeffries’ leadership, which went from resounding success to embarrassment.

Under the command of CEO Fran Horowitz since 2017, A&F is now experiencing another stage in its history, investing in basic t-shirts, sustainable technologies, dresses and even for brides, targeting different audiences in its promotions, including plus size. The name of the label is no longer visible on the pieces, as is the famous moose symbol.

However, the products lack an identity, analyzes Sresnewsky. “This existed more clearly before, despite the scandals,” he says. “But it’s the best phase in terms of the product, because it’s the most commercial. That’s why it’s selling well.”

The “bridal” product line, that is, for brides, is a novelty that sounds strange, says the professor. “They were born selling jeans and flannel, so how do I suddenly disassociate them from that? There’s a generation that only knew the brand because of the Netflix documentary.”

Fernando Hage, fashion professor at Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado, Faap, says that A&F is an example of how fashion is capable of quickly redefining itself. “The market is very fast-paced, and they managed to understand how to gradually transform.”

As far as identity is concerned, he agrees with the ESPM professor. The brand drastically eliminated what made it recognizable and today enjoys the success of the always versatile basic fashion.

“This market was driven by the pandemic and Abercrombie is communicating its products with a certain diversity”, he analyzes. “From the second half of the 20th century to now, the market has transformed a lot. Before, there were brands and their identities that consumers adapted to, but today brand identities have to fit with consumers’ desires and values.”