For those who have lived it, impossible to forget the Abercrombie experience.
With sales models with sculpted bodies, dim lights and musky scents, the Abercrombie & Fitch brand has won over a whole generation of young consumers, eager to be part of this Ken and Barbie gang.
In the 1990s, the economic model of the American fashion brand was based entirely on the image of its ambassadors, knowingly hypersexualized.
A story of the ideal of youth and beauty but also of excesses and discrimination told by Alison Klayman in her documentary
Abercrombie & Fitch: A brand on the wire
.
Available on Netflix since April 19, the film delivers the bleak underside of this commercial success which was worldwide during the 1990s and 2000s. For the director, this documentary is “an opportunity to tell a system that involves such abstract concepts than racism and beauty standards, and which affects all of our lives, ”she explains to Coveteur magazine.
Abercrombie, from traditional to sexy
As often in the United States, everything begins with a fairy tale.
Here, Cinderella is a New York outerwear brand founded in 1892. Legend has it that it dressed Ernest Hemingway, among others.
Her fairy godmother is none other than Leslie Wexler, a businessman behind many successful concepts in shopping malls, including Victoria's Secret.
The latter bought the label in 1988 and, in 1992, armed himself with Mike Jeffries at his side to help him set up an empire.
The duo transforms the dusty institution into a factory of dreams and logo t-shirts.
Their magic wand: ephebes captured by fashion photographer Bruce Weber and whose images of toned (and mostly white) bodies were plastered in stores.
They also embody the brand in the flesh in these same places of sale, under the cap of salespeople.
A recipe entirely based on the imagery of young people
WASP
(White and Protestant Anglo-Saxon) which will become Leslie Wexler's trademark.
At its peak, the brand was then listed on the stock exchange, had more than 700 stores around the world and posted a turnover of nearly 3.5 billion dollars.
Decay model
After the rise, the fall.
Discrimination in hiring, physical recruitment, racism... The Abercrombie & Fitch model built by Mike Jeffries reveals all its perversity through denunciations.
Many of the lawsuits by former employees went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
The facade of sexualization hides accusations of sexual abuse against photographer Bruce Weber.
The legal proceedings will lead to a bilateral agreement in 2020. Leslie Wexler is cited in the Epstein minor embezzlement case.
The enigmatic Mike Jeffries leaves office overnight.
In 2013, the brand hit rock bottom and began a major clean-up and a change of image.
Beyond the seriousness of the charges, the epic Abercrombie &
Fitch sheds light on the marketing cogs of an era when fashion created desire through exclusion.
The fall of a discriminating empire, at the dawn of the advent of inclusivity.
