Abercrombie & Fitch
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It’s been a while since we last walked in to an Abercrombie & Fitch store but we’ll never forget the loud, blaring music and the extremely good-looking sales associates.
It turns out the trendy clothing line doesn’t want just its employees to be pretty, it wants the customers to be model-like as well.
The retailer doesn’t stock XL or XXL sizes in women’s clothing because they don’t want overweight women wearing the brand, according to Business Insider.
Many of Abercrombie & Fitch’s competitors such as American Eagle and H&M, stock larger sizes. American Eagles offers up to XXL for both men and women. The largest size Abercrombie carries is a size 10 for women. H&M carries pants up to size 16 and American Eagle up to size 18.
H&M recently featured a plus-sized model in its latest swimwear collection.
“It’s almost everything. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that,” Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries said in a 2006 interview with Salon.
In the same interview Jeffries said he is fine with excluding some customers.
“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he said. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive All-American kid with the great attitude a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
It is likely the retailer stocks XL and XXL for men is to appeal to the manly athletes with larger, but fit, bodies, Robin Lewis, co-author of The New Rules of Retail and CEO of newsletter The Robin Report told Business Insider.
“Abercrombie is only interested in people with washboard stomachs who look like they’re about to jump on a surfboard,” Lewis said.
Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant
