McBride "I hate A&F"

Thesis: The success of A&F depends on the teenagers mainly white’s psychological sense of belonging. The main point of this article was about how a certain clothing company goes about the way they advertise and what race their clothing is intended for. It is mainly aimed towards the leisure or upper middle class and young people.

McBride first starts out with talking about his first experiences with seeing the logo Abercrombie & Fitch and how everywhere he went he would see some version of it. Mainly focused on how he mainly saw white gay men wearing the product with the occasional colored man wearing it. He then discusses the beginning of the company. It first started as Abercrombie & Co. and it purpose was in outdoor attire. He then meets up with Ezra Fitch who was used the brand all the time and asked Mr. Abercrombie if he could be a partner. So they did unite and it became Abercrombie & Fitch. They got in an argument because Abercrombie wanted to stay in outdoor attire and Fitch wanted to expand the business. So Abercrombie left the company and Fitch went about expanding. The people he was intending to reach was the white upper middle class. He then goes into explaining how certain requirements and the way you look is crucial to what your class is and the way you should appear to others. It then goes into how A&F were sued for discriminating hiring people of color. After the hearings they changed their policies and began to hire people of color. So basically people who did not meet the requirements were not welcomed in the store.

1. Couldn’t you also argue other clothing brands such a FUBU that is intended towards the colored community?

2. He talks a lot about gay men and wearing A&F clothing. Is he suggesting that the majority of men that wear this clothing line are gay?

I found this article to be somewhat interesting but also boring at times. He gives a long overview of how the company was started. But it then picked up when he started to talk about how A&F discriminated against people of color. It was a fairly easy read and I kind of already new about the not hiring of colored people.