Abercrombie and the "American" Image

There is something rotten in the state of Harvard Square. Perhaps you've noticed the gigantic pictures of "men's wrestling" that suddenly appeared this fall. Or those eerily good-looking people who stand holding doors open for no apparent reason. Or maybe you've noticed that this fall the Square took a step towards homogeneity. The evidence is conclusive--Abercrombie & Fitch, no longer content with suburban malls, has jutted itself into Harvard Square.

Sounds overly dramatic to you? Look again.

In this store's 300-plus-page "A&F Quarterly," the magazine they try to pass off as a catalogue, there are perhaps four pages which feature people of color. One depicts the "hip hop hussy," Lil' Kim, who makes "Clinton's dirty talk look like Teletubby kiddy-babble." She's not exactly my pick of the month for black entertainers. The other three pages featuring people of color are included in a sociology section entitled "Where the Wild Things are."

I'll just let you think about that.

Of course, retail stores are allowed to appeal to a certain market base. If Abercrombie wanted to appeal to a largely white audience, that's fine. There are plenty of fashion labels that target a specific ethnicity--Fubu for African-Americans and Pinoy-Wear for Filipino-Americans to name a few. But these designers make it clear that they are appealing to a certain group within the nation. Abercrombie tricks you into thinking that their ads represent all of America. Their troupe of Aryan models even travel to England to prove it. For as we all know, "the only way to understand what it means to be an American is by spending time in another country." I suppose the models of color couldn't afford it.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. After all, today's fashion does lean towards conformity. Gap does sound strangely fascist in their ads that chant "everyone in cords." But when I brought the topic up with my friends, they not only agreed with me, they added to my list of complaints. "Look at how they depict women!" my roommate intoned. Indeed, to the dismay of our Harvard rugby team, the Abercrombie girls were ignominiously relegated to the sidelines and depicted as screaming rugby fans, rather than players. In the boxing spread, the girls were shown having their gloves tied on for them by helpful men. Incidentally, the one female boxer who seemed to know what she was doing was a Venus Williams-esque black woman. Interesting...

Another friend complained about their employment practices. "They only hire tall, beautiful people to work in their store. They want people with a certain look and they encourage sales staff to flirt with people to induce them to buy." And, sure enough, overweight, or average-looking sales people were relegated to the back of the store. The good-looking ones were strategically placed in the front.

And I suppose it is the "look" of the store that is the whole point. I have no problem with stores that cater to a certain image. In today's individualized world no one can appeal to everyone. But I do have a problem when I feel that this "look" becomes a statement. I do have a problem when I sense that this statement is exclusive.

They're not quite racists. I'm sure they have a smidgen of diversity within their sales-force ranks. It's hard to describe them as chauvinists since I'm certain that they have a smattering of female executives. And I'm willing to bet that they even have a couple of retailers with crooked noses that are prone to the occasional pimple.

But Abercrombie & Fitch is more than a place where you buy corduroys. You also buy the white sugar-coated Americana image, which they have so kindly packaged into a reader-friendly magazine/catalogue complete with a "parental-consent-suggested" sticker on the cover. You buy into a set of specific social criteria that few people, possibly including yourself, can satisfy. You choose to buy into an organization that chose to carve out its niche in the fashion world by excluding rather than diversifying.

In this university community, whose very greatness is made possible by the intellectual, ethnic and cultural differences of its students, faculty and staff, the philosophy of sameness espoused by Abercrombie & Fitch is an aberration.

But sometimes, I suppose the lure of that fantastic pair of "crippled creek cargo" pants is too much to resist. Go ahead. Buy the pants. And while you're there pick up a copy of the magazine-they-pass-off-as-a-catalogue. Glance at some of the "articles" and you'll see what I mean. Read it in the store, though. Don't pay the six bucks I did.

Christina S. Lewis '02 is a History and Literature concentrator in Leverett House. Her column will appear on alternate Mondays.