Picture Supply: Getty / Michael M. Santiago
The 12 months was 2008.
And that 12 months for my 14-year-old self was characterised by a big shift in my wardrobe. It was the primary time I ever acquired a pair of Coach trainers to match my Coach crossbody, and in addition one of many final instances I’d be sporting streetwear. In just some months, as a substitute of window looking for Coogi at Jimmy Jazz, we began touring half-hour out of the town to buy Abercrombie & Fitch and its subsidiary, Hollister.
In April, Netflix launched a documentary entitled “White Sizzling” chronicling rise and fall of Abercrombie & Fitch within the ’90s and 2000s, however whereas the documentary dissects Abercrombie & Fitch as a popular culture phenomenon in white suburbia, it would not showcase the best way Black youngsters in Black cities embraced the model. However Black individuals had been, and proceed to be, instrumental in A&F’s success, from influencing purchases on social media to procuring often themselves.
Search the names of comparable life-style manufacturers on Fb, and you will find previous profiles of Black youngsters with social handles like HollisterKidd. Throughout my highschool years, it wasn’t unusual to see Abercrombie & Fitch paired with True Faith denims and Cartier frames at a home get together or a teenage woman at Eastland sporting Hollister with a Juicy starter necklace and Mek denims. Chief Keef even rapped about Hollister in a tune.
Picture Supply: Getty / Tim Boyle
Positive, my relationship with A&F would not seem like that of previous staff within the “White Sizzling” documentary, however it does not imply the world of wealthy white suburbia was a far-fetched idea for me both.
Whereas “White Sizzling” prefaces that Abercrombie & Fitch packaged white elitism and privilege in hopes of promoting clothes, it would not explicitly point out how the whiteness of the model coincided with the whitewashing of popular culture within the ’90s and 2000s. Movies, TV exhibits, and even novels depicted preadolescence and early maturity by means of the lens of whiteness, thinness, and wealth. In movie, there was “Clueless,” “She’s All That,” “Imply Women,” and “Deliver It On.” On tv, you can watch “90210,” “The OC,” “Laguna Seaside,” and “Gossip Woman.” Within the novels I learn as a preteen, there was Lisi Harrison’s The Clique collection and Sara Shepherd’s Fairly Little Liars collection.
Wealthy white teen tales had been inescapable. What all of us watched would inevitably turn out to be what we desired, and Abercrombie & Fitch merely packaged the need for wealth and exclusivity at an reasonably priced worth level. With customers naturally being drawn to wealth signifiers, it is a no-brainer that teenagers who had been deliberately excluded in advertising and marketing would nonetheless gravitate to A&F’s product.
After all, the underbelly of the model’s exclusionary advertising and marketing scheme was a tradition of racism and sizeism. Discriminatory hiring practices throughout the 2000s led to a number of lawsuits, an eventual $40 million settlement, and CEO Mike Jeffries’ exit.
However whereas the documentary rightfully condemns the Abercrombie & Fitch tradition of yore, it fails to discover the position that Black followers of the model performed in making it a ubiquitous staple of the 2000s — regardless of not being represented and even welcome. Now, because the documentary brings that period again into the limelight in the present day, Black individuals are as soon as once more excluded from the dialog.
Because the model forges a manner ahead, seeking to proper its wrongs with extra inclusive sizing and accessible kinds, it is also rebuilding its relationship with its Black customers. Not solely does A&F often function Black fashions and influencers in its promotional instruments and on social media, it just lately hosted pop-ups on the world dwelling workplace that includes native Black creators and entrepreneurs.
It is a small step ahead on a protracted and winding street towards redemption with Black customers, a gaggle who’ve been loyal to the Abercrombie & Fitch model for many years. And that is a narrative price telling.
