From Moose to Modern: Abercrombie & Fitch’s Style Revival

By Makayla Cennamo

Growing up, I couldn’t wait to be in high school and rep the iconic Abercrombie & Fitch Co. logo on all my t-shirts and sweaters. However, when I entered high school in 2017, I would never be caught wearing anything from Abercrombie & Fitch. Around that time, Abercrombie & Fitch scored a 65 on the 2016 American Customer Satisfaction Index, making it the lowest on the index and America’s most hated retailer that year. It appears that my opinion was shared amongst my generation, and instead of throwing in the towel, Abercrombie & Fitch took the opportunity to transform their branding.

An All-American Hoax

The “established 1892” tagline is found all over their store and clothing, but what many might not know is the brand was originally an elite sporting goods store in Manhattan, New York. The store ended up dressing American icons such as Theodore Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart. In the 1940’s, Abercrombie made uniforms for all of the branches of the U.S. military. How did this brand change their marketing appeal to “the cool kids” in high schools across the United States?

In the late 90’s to early 2000’s, Abercrombie & Fitch was the store that was known for shirtless men on their shopping bags, club music in stores, and its signature cologne scent that overwhelmed customers as they entered stores. Former CEO Michael Jeffries (CEO 1992-2014) would often comment that the brand refused to make clothing for XL to XXL shoppers. He said in a 2006 interview with Salon, “‘In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.’” Not only was this brand famously anti-body positivity, but it also had multiple racism scandals. The list goes on from banning dreadlocks for staff to a class action discrimination case for denying employment to a woman with a headscarf since, “… the religious garment violated its ‘look policy’.” The company lost this case in Supreme Court 8-1. With this bad press and outdated mindset, Abercrombie began to fail with their stock prices falling to an average of $11.20 in 2017. Between being the most hated retailer and stocks falling, no one wanted a part in Abercrombie & Fitch.

We Remember You: Growing with the Generation

In December 2014, Abercrombie announced that Michael Jeffries would step down and his leave would be effective immediately. After a few years, Fran Horowitz was appointed as Abercrombie & Fitch Co.’s new CEO in February 2017 and since then, Abercrombie’s shares are up more than 1000%. When asked about how she has changed the game for Abercrombie, she says, “Getting close to the customer and understanding what they are looking for is the win.” The way she did this was she looked at the company’s history and who were their loyal customers during their peak in 2012. Those millennials are now aged 28-43 who are in need for more professional and mature clothing that have a little bit more money to spend than when they were 16. Therefore, Abercrombie spent about five years studying the needs and lifestyles of millennials. The conclusion that Abercrombie found was that millennials are different than the older generations. Corey Robinson, who became Abercrombie’s head of merchandizing and design in 2018, says that “[millennials] live for the long weekend, when they’re planning brunch with friends or going to a friend’s destination wedding.” So, what did Abercrombie do? They found their target market and created outfits and accessories to fit every scenario of a busy millennial. Instead of following microtrends from social media, they are bringing it back to the basics to represent their new clean and sophisticated reputation.

The brand that was once so against a clothing tag reading “XL” is now one of the front runners for more inclusive sizing. Abercrombie & Fitch were known for their jeans, but knew that there was room for growth. While studying what their target market needs, they saw that many women on YouTube would try on jeans and complain about a waist gap. So, in 2019, they launched Curve Love which featured more inclusive sizing for different body types that has more room in the hips and thighs.

On the social media and advertisement side, Carey Krug became the head of marketing in 2018 and helped display the rebranding. Now Abercrombie’s brand image has shifted to feature a diversity of models with different body types. They also chose to shy away from influencer-partnered branding that is more appealing with Gen Z and instead wanted millennials to find this discovery for themselves.

It is clear to say that Abercrombie & Fitch have had a revival, and that they are only getting started. In the words of the trending hashtag on Tik Tok, #AbercrombieIsBack.