Not so cool. Michael Jeffries made headlines in 2014 when he retired from his role as CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch — and his controversial work with the company is back in the news thanks to Netflix’s new documentary.
White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & FitchTuesday, April 19th, the streaming service received the following: The doc is an eye-opening inside look at what happened to the clothing brand following Jeffries’ rebrand in 1992.
Jeffries was hired by a company after his own company collapsed. Leslie Wexner as he tried to bring life back to Abercrombie & Fitch, which was originally founded in 1892. With the hiring of Jeffries, the brand became intentionally exclusionary and it was profitable … for a while.
“I was kind of shocked at how much it took these abstract negative forces in society and systemized it,” White HotDirector Alison KlaymanIndieWire spoke to him on Tuesday. “You could really tell a story of the system and make things concrete — structural systemic racism, beauty standards — something that feels in the air but clearly affects all of us, and in the case of Abercrombie, it’s really a story of top-down reinforcement of things that exist in society and are weaponized and used for their gain.”
The famous quote was made by the former CEO Salon in 2006 that the brand was “absolutely” exclusionary, noting that he only wanted to market the clothes to “cool, good-looking people.”
While Jeffries was running the show at A&F, having extremely fit, toned, hot and somewhat unattainable workers both in the stores and at headquarters was the norm. The sexy and specific vibe of elitism was something Jeffries never apologized for — and ultimately got him into trouble.
“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, it’s not secret. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends,” he told Salon. “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Companies in trouble try to target everyone: fat, thin, young, old. You then become completely vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”
Jeffries’ controversial comments and intense marketing ploys paired with complaints of racism in the company and a decline in sales led to him stepping down as CEO in December 2014.
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