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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

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Go home, Abercrombie & Fitch. You're irrelevant.

Teenybopper retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has come under some fire lately.

No, not because the store’s clothing trends and style have seemingly never evolved or broken out of the popular middle school demographic, but because CEO Mike Jeffries “doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store.”

Reasonable enough. I instate a similar referendum when I throw parties. When people show up to my apartment, I have them step on a scale as they walk through the door, and if the number is not to my satisfaction, I ask them to leave. No harm, no foul. Mr. Jeffries and I operate on the same wavelength. We simply don’t want our brand associated with (gasp) fat people.

Specifically fat women, though. Because if a guy comes to my place and he’s on the larger side, it’s probably just all muscles. I know this is acceptable because Abercrombie & Fitch sells men’s clothing in XL and XXL sizes.

The highest clothing size the retailer makes for women is a large.

Don’t look at it as sexism. Think of it as natural selection. Obviously, only the most desirable of women wear the Abercrombie & Fitch moose on their chests. Because larger women won’t be able to wear the clothing, they won’t find mates, and the throngs of overweight women plaguing this earth will die out.

Thanks, Mr. Jeffries. I was stumped as to how to solve that conundrum.

Okay, I’m sorry. I’m not sure how much longer I can go on with the satire. I’m making myself nauseous. And that’s coming from a person who considers himself relatively shallow.

Is Mike Jeffries just delusional? I don’t know a single sensible person who wore Abercrombie & Fitch clothing beyond the 10th grade. I actually remember one morning freshman year of college where I looked down during one of my classes and realized, to my absolute horror, I was wearing an old Abercrombie & Fitch sweater I had slept in the night before. You know who still wears Abercrombie & Fitch past high school? Basic betches and kids who get dressed in the darkness of their dorm, failing to realize what they’re putting on.

The only way I can rationally justify Mr. Jeffries’ words is to imagine the 68-year-old man just has some serious unresolved childhood acceptance issues. Is there another kind of

person who would publically say, “ … good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people?”

Wake up, Mr. Jeffries. You can pay all the money in the world to attractive models and employees to wear your clothing in advertisements. That doesn’t mean people with actual taste will still wear your clothing once puberty is over.

I’m not saying I’m some saint. I find myself acting judgmental towards overweight people sometimes. It’s a stigma that exists in society that I often unconsciously participate in, and while I’m not proud of it, it doesn’t seem like it’s going away.

Especially as long as people like Mike Jeffries believe they dictate who’s cool and who’s not.

In the meantime, I’m just going to stay the steady course and continue not to wear
Abercrombie & Fitch clothing.

­— wdmcdona@indiana.edu

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