Wednesday, May 15, 2013

#FitchTheHomeless

A few days ago I ran across an article talking about Abercrombie & Fitch and, in my opinion, their appalling marketing techniques. The CEO of A&F, Mike Jeffries was quoted in an interview some time ago saying "In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. We go after the cool kids. A lot of people don't belong and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."If you haven't yet heard about all of this, here is a short news video to catch you up for what this post is really about.

Here is the thing, I read an article about all of this nonsense first and it really upset me. I was floored that someone would so blatantly talk about being exclusive and only wanting 'cool kids' to wear the clothes. However, other than not buying their clothes (not a problem, I never have, but you can bet I won't be buying their number 8 perfume anymore) and encouraging others to do the same, I wasn't sure what there was to do. Some people are protesting outside of stores, others are sending their purchased A&F clothing back to the company in protest. And then there is this guy, he made a video with an idea of how to change the image of A&F. 

His idea if you have yet to see the video is to go to thrift stores and purchase every pice of A&F clothing you can find and give it to the homeless. Ask your friends to look through their closets and look through yours too and give all the A&F apparel away to the homeless. I can appreciate his heart (I am assuming it was a good natured thought) but I REALLY disagree with the message it is sending. I feel that the video is just saying that the homeless don't fit that cool kid mold either but we are going to really piss Jeffries off by having all of them wear his clothes. While I love the idea of making that guy super upset about his brand not being what he wants it to be, I feel that giving the clothes to the homeless just further confirms the idea that they are less than, or beneath an ideal. I think the idea of clothing the homeless is great. But I think clothing them for this purpose does more harm than good.

I know these thoughts aren't totally coherent...my brain is still processing everything. But I felt that something should be said to the contrary. I will not be joining the #FitchTheHomeless movement. I will continue to look at the homeless as people with hopes and dreams and stories, not just a means for me to get my point across. And I would hope that you would join me in not supporting A&F.


2 comments:

  1. I had a really similar thought! I will, however, be donating all of my old A&F clothing ASAP.

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    1. It's always wonderful hearing that people are thinking critically about the same things you are. Thanks for the comment, and I hope donating those clothes felt good :)

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