The CEO of the hugely successful brand, Abercombie & Fitch has come in for some backlash over his recent comments about his customers, or more importantly the people he doesn’t want as customers. While I’m not surprised by his comments and neither will you, if you’ve ever been in one of their shops, I am curious as to why he would be so blatantly bigoted. Is his brand so safe and secure from consumer opinion or fickleness? Is he so ignorant that he thinks that people who wear size 10 and under are the only ones with money to spend? Doesn’t he know that two out of every three people are larger than a size 10?

I’d like to think this type of arrogance would harm a brand but if you look at our own arrogant a#s, Michael O’Leary, it doesn’t appear to.

There have been some great responses to this including an open letter to Mike Jeffries, the CEO of the moment, but my favourite is the re-branding exercise that one guy is doing to broaden the A&F appeal.

It’ll be interesting to see if anything changes as a result of Mr. Jeffries comments but public opinion has been known to make a difference every now and then.

Karen Neary
Office Enforcer