Opinion: The Aging of Abercrombie & Fitch
Columbus based Abercrombie & Fitch is on this week’s cover of Bloomberg Businessweek. Susan Berfield and Lindsey Rupp discuss how the once ever-present and elitist A&F dominated teen fashion. But in recent years, complications from (the now) former CEO Mike Jeffries and changing trends have caused the company’s sales to drop drastically.
[su_quote] The attitude—conformist, sexy, exclusive—hadn’t evolved much, either. But teens have. They are shopping at fast-fashion chains such as Forever 21 and H&M, which are dirt cheap. Jeffries didn’t think A&F should discount. He wouldn’t sell clothes bigger than women’s size 10 until about a year ago. It wasn’t until last spring that he allowed the lights to be turned up in the Hollister mall stores and the shutters taken off the A&F ones. He lowered the music and reduced the amount of cologne sprayed in the stores by exactly 25 percent. And he agreed that the logos had to become less prominent, too. [/su_quote]No one is certain what the future holds for A&F, but the company is hoping that change will be a good thing.
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