1 00:00:09,217 --> 00:00:10,385 [sighs] 2 00:00:10,927 --> 00:00:12,095 [crew member] 101. Take four. 3 00:00:12,595 --> 00:00:13,596 [producer] Thank you. 4 00:00:15,765 --> 00:00:17,892 [man 1] Recruiting is everything. 5 00:00:22,564 --> 00:00:24,441 My name is Jose Sanchez. 6 00:00:24,524 --> 00:00:27,402 Sorry, I'm stopping you because I work for Abercrombie & Fitch. 7 00:00:27,485 --> 00:00:31,197 I'm a recruiter. I'm looking for people to work part-time in a store. 8 00:00:31,281 --> 00:00:34,075 Nothing crazy. Five, ten, 15 hours a week. 9 00:00:34,159 --> 00:00:35,827 We hire good-looking people. 10 00:00:36,953 --> 00:00:41,374 ♪ Can we forget about the things I said When I was drunk? ♪ 11 00:00:42,208 --> 00:00:44,294 ♪ I didn't mean to call you that… ♪ 12 00:00:44,377 --> 00:00:45,795 [woman 1] When I was in high school, 13 00:00:45,879 --> 00:00:48,506 Abercrombie & Fitch was the hottest retailer. 14 00:00:49,215 --> 00:00:50,675 [woman 2] It was one of those stores 15 00:00:50,759 --> 00:00:53,386 that when you're walking around, you do a walk-through. 16 00:00:53,470 --> 00:00:58,516 ♪ Please tell me why ♪ 17 00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:00,393 ♪ My car is in the front yard… ♪ 18 00:01:00,477 --> 00:01:02,020 It was such a pop culture phenomenon. 19 00:01:02,687 --> 00:01:04,898 [man 2] There was just this huge explosion. 20 00:01:04,981 --> 00:01:07,484 If you weren't wearing Abercrombie, you weren't cool. 21 00:01:07,567 --> 00:01:09,778 ♪ I came in through the window… ♪ 22 00:01:09,861 --> 00:01:12,155 [man 3] I just remember the pressure to fit in, 23 00:01:12,238 --> 00:01:14,532 being like, "I wish I had that Abercrombie thing." 24 00:01:16,076 --> 00:01:17,494 [woman 4] I don't feel this way now, 25 00:01:17,577 --> 00:01:20,080 but then it was very cool to look like everyone else. 26 00:01:21,206 --> 00:01:23,583 [Sanchez] There was a guy, blond hair, blue-eyed, 27 00:01:23,666 --> 00:01:26,461 just shredded like he was carved out of granite. 28 00:01:26,544 --> 00:01:28,588 And he wore Abercrombie & Fitch. 29 00:01:28,671 --> 00:01:31,216 -What it was selling was aspirational. -Aspirational. 30 00:01:31,299 --> 00:01:32,133 Aspirational. 31 00:01:32,217 --> 00:01:33,176 Aspirational. 32 00:01:35,637 --> 00:01:37,013 ♪ My car is in the front yard… ♪ 33 00:01:37,097 --> 00:01:40,475 This, like, perfect image of an all-American youth. 34 00:01:41,267 --> 00:01:42,977 [woman 3] I would walk past Abercrombie like, 35 00:01:43,061 --> 00:01:45,146 "What is so special about this store?" 36 00:01:45,230 --> 00:01:48,817 It is so thin and white. 37 00:01:50,902 --> 00:01:51,986 [woman 5] Fraternity, 38 00:01:52,070 --> 00:01:53,154 boarding school, 39 00:01:53,238 --> 00:01:54,072 WASP, 40 00:01:54,155 --> 00:01:55,073 upper crust, 41 00:01:55,156 --> 00:01:56,616 preppy with money. 42 00:01:59,661 --> 00:02:01,704 [man 4] When I wore the Abercrombie clothes, 43 00:02:01,788 --> 00:02:04,916 I felt different, and I thought things might be different. 44 00:02:06,417 --> 00:02:09,504 [man 5] There's a reason why people liked that brand. 45 00:02:10,213 --> 00:02:13,383 It's because exclusion is part of our society. 46 00:02:24,978 --> 00:02:27,730 I think the first time I saw Abercrombie & Fitch, 47 00:02:27,814 --> 00:02:33,153 a girl was carrying a bag with a half-naked, pretty hot white guy 48 00:02:33,236 --> 00:02:34,445 in black and white. 49 00:02:34,529 --> 00:02:36,698 And I thought, "What is that?" 50 00:02:44,455 --> 00:02:46,416 [man 6] Abercrombie sold a dream. 51 00:02:46,499 --> 00:02:49,419 It almost was like your fantasy, like a young person's fantasy. 52 00:02:49,502 --> 00:02:52,797 They literally made so much money marketing clothes 53 00:02:52,881 --> 00:02:55,550 but advertising them with no clothes on, so… 54 00:02:56,050 --> 00:02:57,802 [camera shutter clicking] 55 00:02:58,845 --> 00:03:01,890 [chuckles] You got used to that. The more you shoot with Abercrombie, 56 00:03:01,973 --> 00:03:05,268 the more you're, like, comfortable with being half naked 57 00:03:05,351 --> 00:03:08,021 and the clothes you're modeling not actually being on you. 58 00:03:09,981 --> 00:03:13,943 [woman 1] When you look back on it as an adult, it can feel shocking. 59 00:03:14,444 --> 00:03:16,821 But as a teenager, you just thought it was cool. 60 00:03:17,447 --> 00:03:19,866 I saved enough money to buy one top, 61 00:03:19,949 --> 00:03:22,994 and I wore it as often as I could without looking weird. 62 00:03:23,077 --> 00:03:27,081 It said "Abercrombie & Fitch" on the arm. So it would be like… 63 00:03:27,832 --> 00:03:30,126 "Look, I'm cool." [laughs] 64 00:03:30,210 --> 00:03:31,586 At least at my high school, 65 00:03:31,669 --> 00:03:35,131 there was girls who would cut out the guys from the bags 66 00:03:35,215 --> 00:03:37,717 and hang up those pictures in their locker. 67 00:03:38,426 --> 00:03:43,264 I liked the posters or the photographs, and all my books were covered in them. 68 00:03:43,848 --> 00:03:45,892 The Abercrombie would go on the spine, 69 00:03:45,975 --> 00:03:47,894 and then the picture would go on each side. 70 00:03:49,312 --> 00:03:51,022 [man 7] The clothes were nothing special, 71 00:03:51,105 --> 00:03:55,860 but it was the label on the clothes and Abercrombie across your chest 72 00:03:55,944 --> 00:03:58,112 that was almost like a badge of distinction. 73 00:03:59,364 --> 00:04:03,618 [man 4] I associated the brand with, like, frat boys, rugby players. 74 00:04:03,701 --> 00:04:08,122 Like, the white guys that played unconventional sports like lacrosse. 75 00:04:08,206 --> 00:04:11,417 It's not like other companies where they have a celebrity, 76 00:04:11,501 --> 00:04:13,795 like, "I'm gonna be just like Brad Pitt one day." 77 00:04:13,878 --> 00:04:14,879 Like, no, you're not. 78 00:04:15,838 --> 00:04:18,424 But you can be like the Abercrombie guy one day. 79 00:04:19,008 --> 00:04:21,386 Very innocent, small town-type people. 80 00:04:22,387 --> 00:04:25,390 The people that bought the clothes are the people in the campaign. 81 00:04:25,473 --> 00:04:28,810 -[interviewer] Where you from? -PA, baby. Amish County, PA. 82 00:04:28,893 --> 00:04:30,770 -New York, New York. -719. 83 00:04:30,853 --> 00:04:32,563 -Pittsburgh. -Dallas, Texas. 84 00:04:32,647 --> 00:04:33,690 Connecticut. 85 00:04:34,649 --> 00:04:38,778 [man 4] I went to Stanford, and my freshman year roommate, 86 00:04:38,861 --> 00:04:42,824 he had the catalogs with all of the, like, shirtless, 87 00:04:42,907 --> 00:04:45,827 rugby-playing, rowing Abercrombie dudes, 88 00:04:45,910 --> 00:04:50,498 and on his dorm closet, he, like, made a whole collage of these men. 89 00:04:50,581 --> 00:04:52,083 So I would say there was, like, 90 00:04:52,166 --> 00:04:55,253 50 little cutouts of Abercrombie shirtless guys 91 00:04:55,336 --> 00:04:58,256 just posted on his-- on his dorm closet. 92 00:04:58,339 --> 00:05:02,427 So obviously it was then that I noticed that it was, like, a super white thing. 93 00:05:08,474 --> 00:05:12,186 I grew up in Washington, DC, and in seventh grade, 94 00:05:12,270 --> 00:05:14,188 I went to Sidwell Friends High School, 95 00:05:14,272 --> 00:05:16,482 the high school where Malia and Sasha Obama went, 96 00:05:16,566 --> 00:05:17,567 Chelsea Clinton went, 97 00:05:17,650 --> 00:05:21,571 so this very elite private school in Upper Northwest Washington, DC. 98 00:05:21,654 --> 00:05:24,574 I was all into hip-hop and R&B, 99 00:05:24,657 --> 00:05:28,286 so my designers at that time were kind of FUBU, Mecca, 100 00:05:28,369 --> 00:05:30,496 and these urban wear designers 101 00:05:30,580 --> 00:05:33,249 that had really emerged in the late '80s and early '90s. 102 00:05:33,333 --> 00:05:34,667 And I got to Sidwell, 103 00:05:34,751 --> 00:05:37,337 and I heard of this thing called Abercrombie & Fitch. 104 00:05:37,420 --> 00:05:40,423 I didn't know what was so special about this brand, 105 00:05:40,506 --> 00:05:43,217 but at Sidwell, it was the thing to have. 106 00:05:49,599 --> 00:05:54,896 I remember seeing kids who definitely had more money than I did wearing the clothes 107 00:05:54,979 --> 00:05:58,649 and just wanting to be a part of that look. 108 00:05:59,859 --> 00:06:04,030 ♪ Can't you see our generation Goin' down the tubes… ♪ 109 00:06:05,156 --> 00:06:06,657 The super low-rise jeans, 110 00:06:06,741 --> 00:06:10,370 showing the midriff, belly button area was definitely in. 111 00:06:10,453 --> 00:06:13,081 ♪ Remember when we were Kids hangin' out… ♪ 112 00:06:13,164 --> 00:06:15,541 You know, even, I think, celebrities were wearing it. 113 00:06:15,625 --> 00:06:17,585 ♪ Well, now the whole damn generation… ♪ 114 00:06:17,668 --> 00:06:19,670 [Ocampo] Abercrombie & Fitch used people 115 00:06:19,754 --> 00:06:21,506 before they were anything more than models. 116 00:06:21,589 --> 00:06:23,966 -♪ Say goodbye to your generation… ♪ -Taylor Swift. 117 00:06:24,050 --> 00:06:25,635 Jennifer Lawrence. 118 00:06:25,718 --> 00:06:27,095 Channing Tatum. 119 00:06:27,178 --> 00:06:29,263 -♪ Say goodbye to your generation… ♪ -Ashton Kutcher. 120 00:06:30,431 --> 00:06:31,766 [Barrientos] Heidi Klum. 121 00:06:31,849 --> 00:06:33,142 [Ocampo] January Jones. 122 00:06:34,644 --> 00:06:37,772 I mean, we were looking at full-on advertisements 123 00:06:37,855 --> 00:06:39,315 as telling us what was cool. 124 00:06:40,108 --> 00:06:44,821 Magazines were definitely a big thing because social media just wasn't there. 125 00:06:44,904 --> 00:06:47,740 ♪ Oops, I did it again ♪ 126 00:06:47,824 --> 00:06:52,286 [Karo] MTV, the Video Music Awards, and the House of Style television show 127 00:06:52,370 --> 00:06:56,999 gave flyover country access to the things that they wouldn't see ordinarily. 128 00:06:57,083 --> 00:06:58,835 Please welcome 98 Degrees to TRL. 129 00:06:58,918 --> 00:07:00,461 [cheering] 130 00:07:01,504 --> 00:07:05,925 Trends that might have begun on the east or west coast now are being shown on MTV 131 00:07:06,008 --> 00:07:07,468 and through their channels, 132 00:07:07,552 --> 00:07:11,347 and it made styles move across the country much more quickly. 133 00:07:11,431 --> 00:07:12,682 The same happened in malls. 134 00:07:12,765 --> 00:07:17,728 ♪ I was lying on the grass On Sunday morning of last week… ♪ 135 00:07:19,021 --> 00:07:20,731 That mall culture was everything. 136 00:07:20,815 --> 00:07:22,817 You went to shop with your family. 137 00:07:22,900 --> 00:07:25,653 You went to hang out with friends. 138 00:07:25,736 --> 00:07:28,823 We hung out at the mall, like, every weekend. 139 00:07:28,906 --> 00:07:31,576 [Ocampo] My friends and I, behind our parents' back, 140 00:07:31,659 --> 00:07:33,578 would sneak over to the mall and hang out. 141 00:07:33,661 --> 00:07:36,873 We would have our schoolbags, dressed in our Catholic school uniform. 142 00:07:36,956 --> 00:07:40,001 [woman 4] The mall was the place everyone went to pass time. 143 00:07:40,084 --> 00:07:43,087 So when I turned 16, I knew that's where I wanted to work. 144 00:07:43,171 --> 00:07:46,424 ♪ I know it's up for me ♪ 145 00:07:46,507 --> 00:07:48,384 ♪ If you steal my sunshine ♪ 146 00:07:48,468 --> 00:07:51,262 ♪ Making sure I'm not in too deep ♪ 147 00:07:51,345 --> 00:07:53,389 ♪ If you steal my sunshine… ♪ 148 00:07:54,265 --> 00:07:57,894 Imagine, like, a search engine that you could walk through. 149 00:07:57,977 --> 00:08:01,689 Or, you know, an online catalog that's an actual place. 150 00:08:01,772 --> 00:08:06,277 [woman 5] You had to, like, go to the mall to know what to wear. 151 00:08:07,111 --> 00:08:08,946 Aw, very cool. 152 00:08:09,030 --> 00:08:12,074 [Karo] As more malls opened and people gravitated toward malls, 153 00:08:12,158 --> 00:08:14,118 not only were they social outlets, 154 00:08:14,202 --> 00:08:16,913 but they catered to all the different interests all in one place. 155 00:08:19,624 --> 00:08:21,167 Specialty stores enabled you 156 00:08:21,250 --> 00:08:24,045 to be very specific about what you went shopping for. 157 00:08:24,128 --> 00:08:26,547 You can go to Hot Topic if you were kind of punkish. 158 00:08:26,631 --> 00:08:29,800 You could go to Pac Sun if you wanted more of that surfer look. 159 00:08:29,884 --> 00:08:32,970 You could go to Abercrombie & Fitch if you wanted that preppy look. 160 00:08:33,846 --> 00:08:37,225 There were lots of brands doing preppy, but in terms of designers, 161 00:08:37,308 --> 00:08:40,895 it was undoubtedly Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica. 162 00:08:41,938 --> 00:08:43,314 One of the earliest brands 163 00:08:43,397 --> 00:08:47,860 to really merge youth culture and sex appeal 164 00:08:47,944 --> 00:08:49,612 was really Calvin Klein. 165 00:08:49,695 --> 00:08:51,072 What the hell is that? 166 00:08:51,155 --> 00:08:52,782 -A dress. -[dad] Says who? 167 00:08:52,865 --> 00:08:53,824 Calvin Klein. 168 00:08:53,908 --> 00:08:55,284 It looks like underwear. 169 00:08:55,368 --> 00:08:58,955 What Abercrombie did was create this middle ground 170 00:08:59,038 --> 00:09:02,542 between sex, that Calvin Klein was selling, 171 00:09:02,625 --> 00:09:07,380 and all-American preppiness that Ralph Lauren was selling. 172 00:09:08,506 --> 00:09:11,467 You want what you perceive to be the cool guy wearing. 173 00:09:12,468 --> 00:09:16,180 ♪ That's okay 'Cause I've got no self-esteem… ♪ 174 00:09:16,264 --> 00:09:18,099 So it became that, 175 00:09:18,182 --> 00:09:21,686 "If only I had Tommy Hilfiger, I'll be cool." 176 00:09:21,769 --> 00:09:23,604 Or the GUESS jeans. 177 00:09:23,688 --> 00:09:24,981 Oh my goodness. 178 00:09:25,064 --> 00:09:27,525 Some of that stuff was just… You couldn't get it. 179 00:09:27,608 --> 00:09:30,069 Abercrombie & Fitch was a little bit more affordable. 180 00:09:30,152 --> 00:09:32,947 [Givhan] Just aspirational enough, 181 00:09:33,030 --> 00:09:36,367 but not so expensive that it was out of reach. 182 00:09:37,118 --> 00:09:41,414 The fundamental idea is that fashion is selling us belonging, 183 00:09:41,497 --> 00:09:44,584 confidence, cool, sex appeal. 184 00:09:44,667 --> 00:09:45,668 You know, in many ways, 185 00:09:45,751 --> 00:09:49,797 the very last thing that it's selling is actually garments. 186 00:09:51,716 --> 00:09:55,428 [producer] Do you remember the first time you went to an Abercrombie store? 187 00:09:55,928 --> 00:09:57,346 Oh yeah! [laughs] 188 00:09:57,430 --> 00:09:59,932 Um, I remember, like, walking in 189 00:10:00,016 --> 00:10:02,351 and just being hit with the sense, like, 190 00:10:02,435 --> 00:10:05,021 "Oh my God, they've bottled this." 191 00:10:05,104 --> 00:10:11,027 "They have absolutely crystallized everything that I hate about high school 192 00:10:11,110 --> 00:10:13,029 and put it in a store." 193 00:10:22,955 --> 00:10:26,876 [O'Keefe] First you get there, and you have two hot guys flanking the outside. 194 00:10:26,959 --> 00:10:29,253 So if you make it past those hot guys, right, 195 00:10:29,337 --> 00:10:32,757 without a little distraction or a little bit of intimidation. 196 00:10:32,840 --> 00:10:36,344 When I started there, it was around the holidays, so they'd also have a Santa hat. 197 00:10:36,427 --> 00:10:39,096 So, Santa hat, topless and jeans. 198 00:10:40,598 --> 00:10:43,267 [Karo] One of the things that Abercrombie did quite brilliantly 199 00:10:43,351 --> 00:10:46,395 was put up brown shutters over the windows 200 00:10:46,479 --> 00:10:49,315 and a big image in the front doorway at the entry. 201 00:10:49,398 --> 00:10:52,818 So you couldn't see what was in the store unless you went into the store. 202 00:10:52,902 --> 00:10:54,487 No other mall retailer did that. 203 00:10:54,570 --> 00:10:57,031 I mean, they forced you to come over the threshold. 204 00:10:57,782 --> 00:10:59,742 ♪ I'll be with you, girl ♪ 205 00:11:00,242 --> 00:11:02,036 ♪ Like bein' low 206 00:11:02,662 --> 00:11:05,998 ♪ Hey, hey, hey, like bein' stoned… ♪ 207 00:11:08,084 --> 00:11:10,586 [Barrientos] It had a whole vibe to it. 208 00:11:10,670 --> 00:11:14,715 And you would know you were getting close because you would hear music. 209 00:11:14,799 --> 00:11:16,384 [thumping techno music] 210 00:11:17,426 --> 00:11:21,138 [Ocampo] Music full blast, and parents hated it. 211 00:11:21,222 --> 00:11:23,307 [woman 6] Pulsating nightclub beats. 212 00:11:23,391 --> 00:11:26,811 Massive images of, like, bare-chested guys. 213 00:11:26,894 --> 00:11:29,522 [man 8] The whole store was to be an experience, 214 00:11:29,605 --> 00:11:31,315 where people went in there and hung out. 215 00:11:31,982 --> 00:11:33,984 ♪ I'll be with you, girl ♪ 216 00:11:34,485 --> 00:11:35,778 ♪ Like bein' low… ♪ 217 00:11:37,238 --> 00:11:39,907 [Barrientos] It was considered, like, all-American look, 218 00:11:39,990 --> 00:11:42,993 and I considered myself an all-American girl. 219 00:11:43,077 --> 00:11:45,287 [laughs] And so I liked that look. 220 00:11:45,371 --> 00:11:47,373 ♪ Like bein' low ♪ 221 00:11:47,998 --> 00:11:50,418 ♪ Hey, hey, hey, like bein' ♪ 222 00:11:51,669 --> 00:11:54,004 -♪ Stoned ♪ -[spray hissing] 223 00:11:54,088 --> 00:11:55,756 [O'Keefe] It's a particular type of cologne 224 00:11:55,840 --> 00:11:58,008 that only an Abercrombie store would have. 225 00:11:58,092 --> 00:12:02,263 You're hit with the smell. [laughs] You're hit with the smell of Abercrombie. 226 00:12:02,346 --> 00:12:06,434 That sort of, like, musky, masculine scent when you walk by. 227 00:12:07,143 --> 00:12:11,439 I actually would see employees walk around and spray things with this scent. 228 00:12:11,939 --> 00:12:15,443 I get migraines easily, so it was actually hard for me. 229 00:12:15,526 --> 00:12:17,486 I'd go in, come out 'cause I'd have a headache, 230 00:12:17,570 --> 00:12:19,405 but for teenagers, it was probably fine. 231 00:12:19,488 --> 00:12:22,241 I got a lot of it for free, and it smelled-- 232 00:12:22,324 --> 00:12:25,161 Their cologne always smelled really good. Yeah. 233 00:12:25,244 --> 00:12:28,164 My mom was not a fan of the store, 234 00:12:28,247 --> 00:12:31,959 and I remember her asking me, "I don't understand why you shop there." 235 00:12:32,042 --> 00:12:34,086 The staff was horrendous, to be honest. 236 00:12:34,170 --> 00:12:36,005 We at the company used to talk about it. 237 00:12:36,088 --> 00:12:38,924 -Their job was not to be attentive at all. -[woman] Excuse me? 238 00:12:39,008 --> 00:12:42,094 [man 9] Actually, their job was to pretend like you were annoying them. 239 00:12:44,221 --> 00:12:45,055 Excuse me. 240 00:12:46,223 --> 00:12:47,349 -Yeah? -[laughter] 241 00:12:47,433 --> 00:12:50,060 Somebody at MADtv must have worked at Abercrombie, 242 00:12:50,144 --> 00:12:51,854 or their brother must have worked there 243 00:12:51,937 --> 00:12:56,275 because they had the culture of Abercrombie so pegged. 244 00:12:56,358 --> 00:12:59,904 You only got one dressing room. There's a line. Could you open another? 245 00:12:59,987 --> 00:13:00,988 No. 246 00:13:01,071 --> 00:13:02,782 They weren't exaggerated. 247 00:13:02,865 --> 00:13:04,366 Do you have the key? 248 00:13:04,450 --> 00:13:05,576 Nah, brah. 249 00:13:08,204 --> 00:13:11,373 I think Dutch has it. Hey, Dutch, you got the key? 250 00:13:11,457 --> 00:13:14,001 [Tkacik] They really do a good job of capturing, like, 251 00:13:14,084 --> 00:13:16,378 "Where am I? Like, what is this place?" 252 00:13:16,462 --> 00:13:18,088 Hey, Storm, you got the key? 253 00:13:19,799 --> 00:13:22,802 Oh! Yeah, I do. My bad. 254 00:13:22,885 --> 00:13:24,595 [employees laughing] 255 00:13:25,137 --> 00:13:27,431 [woman 7] Every piece of Abercrombie 256 00:13:28,891 --> 00:13:31,143 was by design. 257 00:13:32,895 --> 00:13:34,104 By Mike's design. 258 00:13:37,775 --> 00:13:40,986 The stores, the product, the whole thing, 259 00:13:41,070 --> 00:13:42,863 he was-- he would sign off on. 260 00:13:52,373 --> 00:13:55,042 I was a merchant reporting directly to Mike. 261 00:13:55,626 --> 00:13:58,087 Essentially, we were together nonstop. 262 00:13:58,838 --> 00:14:01,006 I think I was his second hire. 263 00:14:01,090 --> 00:14:03,968 He had a pure mission, 264 00:14:04,051 --> 00:14:06,804 and that was to build Abercrombie. 265 00:14:07,638 --> 00:14:10,599 [woman 8] Mike Jeffries was known to be kind of quiet 266 00:14:10,683 --> 00:14:13,102 in the broadest public sphere, you know. 267 00:14:13,185 --> 00:14:16,021 He was not someone who was giving a lot of TV interviews 268 00:14:16,105 --> 00:14:17,857 or press interviews, 269 00:14:17,940 --> 00:14:21,110 but I think, in person, he was very charismatic. 270 00:14:21,986 --> 00:14:27,783 [Martin] Michael Jeffries, a very handsome man from Southern California. 271 00:14:27,867 --> 00:14:31,370 Fit, uh, very intelligent. 272 00:14:31,453 --> 00:14:34,415 I would say much more private. 273 00:14:34,498 --> 00:14:36,876 Not shy, private. 274 00:14:37,376 --> 00:14:40,045 He had a pure mission, 275 00:14:40,129 --> 00:14:42,965 and that was to build Abercrombie 276 00:14:43,048 --> 00:14:46,552 and, you know, make it successful. 277 00:14:47,761 --> 00:14:51,098 [producer] What was the main thing that motivated him? 278 00:14:51,765 --> 00:14:55,102 [sighs] Well, like everybody, 279 00:14:55,185 --> 00:14:57,187 financial reward. 280 00:15:07,448 --> 00:15:09,450 [woman 6] Mike Jeffries comes to Abercrombie 281 00:15:09,533 --> 00:15:13,954 when it's still a part of Les Wexner's retail empire out in Columbus, Ohio, 282 00:15:14,038 --> 00:15:16,832 so it's part of the Limited's family of brands. 283 00:15:17,791 --> 00:15:18,959 [man 10] As a 25-year-old, 284 00:15:19,043 --> 00:15:22,379 I was going to everybody that had retail spaces and say, 285 00:15:22,463 --> 00:15:23,797 "I have this idea for a store." 286 00:15:23,881 --> 00:15:25,633 "Would you rent me space?" 287 00:15:25,716 --> 00:15:27,217 And everybody turned me down. 288 00:15:27,301 --> 00:15:30,554 I had no money, no store. I just had an idea. 289 00:15:30,638 --> 00:15:35,976 Leslie H. Wexner is one of the great retail masterminds of America. 290 00:15:36,060 --> 00:15:39,188 He is the brains behind a lot of the mall chains 291 00:15:39,271 --> 00:15:41,523 that we have in the country today. 292 00:15:43,400 --> 00:15:46,737 He was known as the Merlin of the Mall, actually. 293 00:15:46,820 --> 00:15:48,739 [fruit machine chiming] 294 00:15:48,822 --> 00:15:51,450 [Karo] Les Wexner built brands in one of two ways. 295 00:15:51,533 --> 00:15:54,662 He would either take an existing brand and try a new concept 296 00:15:54,745 --> 00:15:56,580 that lived within that existing brand 297 00:15:56,664 --> 00:15:58,582 and then spin it out if it was successful, 298 00:15:58,666 --> 00:16:01,043 or he would acquire a brand that was failing. 299 00:16:02,878 --> 00:16:05,881 [Rupp] Abercrombie already had been around for 100 years. 300 00:16:06,465 --> 00:16:09,343 It started as this outdoorsman brand, 301 00:16:09,426 --> 00:16:12,471 you know, very Americana heritage. 302 00:16:14,473 --> 00:16:18,268 [Berfield] E.B. White described the windows of the store 303 00:16:18,352 --> 00:16:20,771 as being kind of the masculine dream. 304 00:16:22,106 --> 00:16:25,234 [Maheshwari] And it catered to sort of elite sportsmen. 305 00:16:25,818 --> 00:16:28,570 [news reporter] On leaving the White House, he led a safari to Africa 306 00:16:28,654 --> 00:16:30,906 and proved his worth as a big-game hunter. 307 00:16:30,990 --> 00:16:33,575 [Maheshwari] It sold to Teddy Roosevelt, 308 00:16:34,201 --> 00:16:35,577 Ernest Hemingway. 309 00:16:39,373 --> 00:16:40,207 [gunshot] 310 00:16:40,290 --> 00:16:41,709 [Rupp] It fell on hard times. 311 00:16:42,292 --> 00:16:45,587 Les Wexner's company bought Abercrombie. 312 00:16:45,671 --> 00:16:47,631 They kind of tried to revamp the brand. 313 00:16:48,340 --> 00:16:53,095 It was a company that had shaving cream, books, 314 00:16:53,178 --> 00:16:55,222 fishing gear, and all this stuff 315 00:16:55,305 --> 00:16:59,226 that old guys like Teddy Roosevelt would probably love to have. 316 00:17:00,310 --> 00:17:01,562 [Karo] When Les first bought it, 317 00:17:01,645 --> 00:17:04,815 he tried to sort of recreate that and couldn't make that work, 318 00:17:04,898 --> 00:17:07,693 which is when, I think, he brought in Mike Jeffries, 319 00:17:07,776 --> 00:17:10,320 a failed CEO of Alcott & Andrews, 320 00:17:10,404 --> 00:17:11,989 which was a women's brand 321 00:17:12,072 --> 00:17:14,366 that focused on professional businesswomen apparel. 322 00:17:17,161 --> 00:17:20,706 He brings in Mike Jeffries and says, "Let's try it again." 323 00:17:21,790 --> 00:17:26,545 And that's when the idea of Abercrombie as we know it today came into formation. 324 00:17:30,966 --> 00:17:37,181 We knew we wanted to be the coolest brand for the 18- to 22-year-olds. 325 00:17:38,307 --> 00:17:43,771 [Rupp] When Mike gets there, initially, he's wearing loafers and khakis, 326 00:17:43,854 --> 00:17:46,982 and eventually, that transitions sort of to this button-down, 327 00:17:47,066 --> 00:17:49,193 jeans, and sandals look. 328 00:17:50,027 --> 00:17:52,738 He came up with this formula that worked. 329 00:17:53,238 --> 00:17:57,117 He found a way to connect sort of the heritage of Abercrombie, 330 00:17:57,201 --> 00:17:59,953 as established in 1892, 331 00:18:00,037 --> 00:18:03,248 catering to elite, privileged people 332 00:18:03,332 --> 00:18:09,171 and combined it with this very sexy, sexual imagery. 333 00:18:09,755 --> 00:18:12,216 [Berfield] It was meant to be exclusive. 334 00:18:12,299 --> 00:18:13,217 [register rings] 335 00:18:13,300 --> 00:18:17,387 He was proud of it being an exclusive brand 336 00:18:17,471 --> 00:18:20,933 that conveyed what he considered kind of a sense of cool. 337 00:18:21,433 --> 00:18:24,770 We built posters, and we put, 338 00:18:24,853 --> 00:18:26,688 "This is what Abercrombie is." 339 00:18:26,772 --> 00:18:29,441 "This is what Abercrombie isn't." 340 00:18:29,525 --> 00:18:32,528 -Abercrombie, the dog is a golden. -[dog barks] 341 00:18:32,611 --> 00:18:35,697 -And the poodle is not Abercrombie. -[dog whimpers] 342 00:18:35,781 --> 00:18:39,368 The Abercrombie college kid drives a Jeep. 343 00:18:39,451 --> 00:18:41,912 -[engine revs] -And he doesn't drive the sedan. 344 00:18:42,579 --> 00:18:43,789 [horn beeps] 345 00:18:45,290 --> 00:18:47,876 Fashion is an industry that is notorious 346 00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:50,546 for not particularly doing a lot of market research. 347 00:18:50,629 --> 00:18:53,257 The goal is not to give people what they're asking for, 348 00:18:53,340 --> 00:18:56,051 but to make them ask for what you're offering. 349 00:19:01,140 --> 00:19:03,350 [bell ringing] 350 00:19:07,062 --> 00:19:10,399 [Rupp] So in 1996, Mike Jeffries took Abercrombie public. 351 00:19:10,899 --> 00:19:13,735 They were no longer a part of Les Wexner's empire. 352 00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:16,905 [woman 9] The brand was just on top. 353 00:19:17,990 --> 00:19:19,867 He would have these quarterly meetings, 354 00:19:19,950 --> 00:19:24,204 and they were like massive pep rallies, you know, around the fire pit 355 00:19:24,288 --> 00:19:27,541 to discuss how much money we're making. 356 00:19:28,292 --> 00:19:30,002 They're just like, "Money, money!" 357 00:19:30,627 --> 00:19:33,672 [Smith-Maglione] You know, we all had stock, the early people. 358 00:19:33,755 --> 00:19:36,175 I always say I was in the right place at the right time. 359 00:19:36,758 --> 00:19:39,178 [Blumberg] Abercrombie Kids launched as well. 360 00:19:40,179 --> 00:19:43,390 And then Hollister sold that sort of California dream. 361 00:19:44,183 --> 00:19:49,605 Abercrombie & Fitch really had a monopoly on this, like, lifestyle apparel. 362 00:19:50,105 --> 00:19:53,150 And it helped make Leslie Wexner a billionaire. 363 00:19:53,984 --> 00:19:57,696 [Tkacik] They built this massive campus that was just like a college campus. 364 00:19:57,779 --> 00:20:00,616 They were, like, one of the first big companies to do that, 365 00:20:00,699 --> 00:20:05,495 and the whole idea was that work was life and life was work. 366 00:20:05,579 --> 00:20:07,247 Everybody would pull all-nighters 367 00:20:07,331 --> 00:20:10,167 because it was like you were hanging out with your friends. 368 00:20:10,250 --> 00:20:11,668 [camera shutter clicking] 369 00:20:11,752 --> 00:20:15,380 My team called it 13th grade, 'cause it was like-- [laughing] 370 00:20:15,964 --> 00:20:17,299 It did feel like that. 371 00:20:18,383 --> 00:20:20,802 Mike would have these dinners at his house. 372 00:20:20,886 --> 00:20:24,014 They were huge, catered, crazy events. 373 00:20:24,890 --> 00:20:28,018 There was a lot of partying, hooking up. Then party with the waitstaff 374 00:20:28,101 --> 00:20:30,270 well after he left and went up to bed. 375 00:20:30,354 --> 00:20:34,066 David Leino tattooed himself with Abercrombie. 376 00:20:34,149 --> 00:20:36,944 I mean, this became a thing. 377 00:20:37,027 --> 00:20:41,573 It-- it was like a disease of "Abercrombie is it, 378 00:20:41,657 --> 00:20:45,869 and if you don't, you know, live it and breathe it, then don't come here." 379 00:20:45,953 --> 00:20:48,038 That's… It was the culture. 380 00:20:48,997 --> 00:20:52,209 [Sanchez] It was your life, but it wasn't a bad life. 381 00:20:52,292 --> 00:20:55,212 You're going out three, four, five nights a week. 382 00:20:55,295 --> 00:20:58,548 -We would start with two Irish car bombs. -[ice clinks] 383 00:20:58,632 --> 00:20:59,967 That's how we started our night. 384 00:21:00,759 --> 00:21:04,805 That's what Abercrombie wanted. We were seen as a cool group. 385 00:21:06,390 --> 00:21:09,268 In the first week that I worked at Abercrombie & Fitch, 386 00:21:09,351 --> 00:21:14,648 the HR rep talked about how you could write Abercrombie & Fitch with dog shit 387 00:21:14,731 --> 00:21:16,942 and put it on a baseball hat 388 00:21:17,025 --> 00:21:18,568 and sell it for 40 bucks. 389 00:21:18,652 --> 00:21:21,822 And she was just like, "That's where we are right now. It's awesome." 390 00:21:24,866 --> 00:21:28,412 [Berfield] Mike Jeffries, from the start, used his abilities 391 00:21:28,495 --> 00:21:31,748 and the resources he had from Wexner, 392 00:21:31,832 --> 00:21:34,418 uh, to begin marketing. 393 00:21:35,544 --> 00:21:38,422 [man 9] The imagery that built that company doesn't exist anymore. 394 00:21:38,505 --> 00:21:40,299 Now it would be through Instagram. 395 00:21:40,382 --> 00:21:43,760 Abercrombie would be, like, an OnlyFans, I think. Do you know what I mean? 396 00:21:48,890 --> 00:21:52,853 So I was editor-in-chief for the duration of the run of the A&F Quarterly. 397 00:21:53,854 --> 00:21:55,772 [man 8] Quarterly, The Quarterly, 398 00:21:55,856 --> 00:21:58,317 A&F Quarterly, magalog, 399 00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:00,861 all sort of interchangeable terms. 400 00:22:04,406 --> 00:22:06,575 So the team was shockingly small. 401 00:22:06,658 --> 00:22:11,621 You know, Northeastern white guys kind of putting this thing together. 402 00:22:11,705 --> 00:22:15,709 We're all, like, super young. I mean, I was 21, 22. 403 00:22:15,792 --> 00:22:18,337 I was very, very lucky to have, like… 404 00:22:18,420 --> 00:22:21,590 to report to some of the biggest people in the fashion industry 405 00:22:21,673 --> 00:22:23,592 as someone just out of college. 406 00:22:24,092 --> 00:22:25,677 [Carone] It felt very DIY. 407 00:22:25,761 --> 00:22:30,223 I mean, that's just sort of the spirit that Savas and Bruce Weber fostered. 408 00:22:30,307 --> 00:22:33,685 I've always felt that men, just like women, 409 00:22:33,769 --> 00:22:37,981 really need an appreciation of themselves and the way they look physically. 410 00:22:38,065 --> 00:22:38,940 Go! 411 00:22:39,024 --> 00:22:42,319 I don't think you can overstate the impact that Bruce Weber… 412 00:22:42,819 --> 00:22:44,946 his aesthetic had. 413 00:22:45,030 --> 00:22:48,450 I mean, Mike put all his eggs in that basket. 414 00:22:50,285 --> 00:22:53,538 The Abercrombie aesthetic is Bruce Weber's aesthetic. 415 00:22:54,164 --> 00:22:57,376 These joyful group shots, 416 00:22:57,459 --> 00:22:58,794 young people, 417 00:22:58,877 --> 00:23:01,088 sex, Americana, 418 00:23:01,171 --> 00:23:04,674 golden retrievers, out in the countryside. 419 00:23:05,175 --> 00:23:07,803 [man 11] Bruce Weber is, I think, the highest-paid photographer. 420 00:23:07,886 --> 00:23:09,096 He was famous. 421 00:23:09,179 --> 00:23:12,265 And he was doing Calvin Klein, he was doing everyone, 422 00:23:12,349 --> 00:23:15,060 and he made a beautiful book called Bear Pond. 423 00:23:15,685 --> 00:23:18,814 I'd never seen anything like it, and that's when I knew I was gay. 424 00:23:18,897 --> 00:23:22,275 Every, uh… gay man I know owns-- 425 00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:24,528 I certainly-- There's a copy over there. 426 00:23:26,780 --> 00:23:30,075 [Givhan] Abercrombie and Bruce Weber did some video content. 427 00:23:31,993 --> 00:23:34,079 [crew] This is Brandon. Take one. Mark. 428 00:23:35,163 --> 00:23:37,207 [Weber] This is a musical we're doing, 429 00:23:37,290 --> 00:23:39,543 and we need you to dance. Do you dance? 430 00:23:39,626 --> 00:23:43,004 I don't really dance, but I pretend I dance, 431 00:23:43,088 --> 00:23:44,673 and that's usually good enough. 432 00:23:46,716 --> 00:23:50,178 [man 12] It was clear to anyone who was paying attention 433 00:23:50,262 --> 00:23:54,558 that there were many gay men involved in all of it. 434 00:23:54,641 --> 00:23:57,185 I think the brilliance of the brand was that that was… 435 00:23:57,269 --> 00:24:01,314 like, went right over the head of their target customer, 436 00:24:01,398 --> 00:24:04,359 like, the straight, college frat bro. 437 00:24:05,402 --> 00:24:09,114 After college, I moved to San Francisco and was working at XY Magazine, 438 00:24:09,197 --> 00:24:11,783 which was a magazine for young gay men. 439 00:24:11,867 --> 00:24:15,579 A lot of high school students would send us their photo 440 00:24:15,662 --> 00:24:17,664 and would send us an essay or an experience 441 00:24:17,747 --> 00:24:20,208 of what it was like being out in their high school. 442 00:24:20,292 --> 00:24:25,922 It was still possible in the late '90s to be a gay kid in Iowa 443 00:24:26,006 --> 00:24:27,924 and to think that you were the only one. 444 00:24:28,758 --> 00:24:31,553 More of those boys started wearing Abercrombie, 445 00:24:31,636 --> 00:24:34,848 and that fashion world, and that kind of masculinity, 446 00:24:34,931 --> 00:24:36,057 and whatever that meant, 447 00:24:36,141 --> 00:24:38,727 all of this was happening in the late '90s. 448 00:24:43,565 --> 00:24:47,486 [Givhan] For a lot of people, they looked at those ads and those videos 449 00:24:47,569 --> 00:24:51,406 and were like, "My fantasy is being represented." 450 00:24:53,325 --> 00:24:59,956 What Bruce Weber does is to give back to gay people this classical thing. 451 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,293 It's, like, take away shame from the past, 452 00:25:03,376 --> 00:25:08,673 this distance from immediate sex or sex jokes or gayness. 453 00:25:09,591 --> 00:25:10,425 It's like a… 454 00:25:11,384 --> 00:25:12,427 a distance. 455 00:25:15,180 --> 00:25:18,433 Bruce Weber is not the first person to do Bruce Weber boys. 456 00:25:18,517 --> 00:25:21,478 There's been a history of it going back to ancient Greece. 457 00:25:23,396 --> 00:25:24,731 Abercrombie came to me 458 00:25:24,814 --> 00:25:27,859 and asked me to create the murals for the Abercrombie stores. 459 00:25:30,987 --> 00:25:35,283 These homoerotic but beautiful guys interacting with each other. 460 00:25:36,868 --> 00:25:41,540 They make you think about the eternal and that everything is forever good. 461 00:25:45,544 --> 00:25:46,461 Take one. Mark. 462 00:25:50,465 --> 00:25:52,467 So I'm the armpit guy. 463 00:25:54,094 --> 00:25:57,556 Abercrombie found a niche with finding brand new models. 464 00:25:57,639 --> 00:25:59,349 Middle America, 465 00:25:59,432 --> 00:26:01,351 big, strong, like, dudes. 466 00:26:01,434 --> 00:26:03,645 And I was like… [mimics accent] "Oh yeah, don't you know, 467 00:26:03,728 --> 00:26:06,147 I'm, like, here from Minnesota for my modeling." 468 00:26:07,649 --> 00:26:11,403 I guess I looked like what they kind of were always puttin' out there. 469 00:26:12,153 --> 00:26:13,738 I'm from Nebraska. 470 00:26:13,822 --> 00:26:16,616 I was captain of the football team, of the wrestling team, 471 00:26:16,700 --> 00:26:19,077 homecoming king, all that kind of stuff. 472 00:26:19,911 --> 00:26:23,081 It wasn't, like, a big dream of mine to be an Abercrombie model. 473 00:26:23,790 --> 00:26:26,001 I was drunk in a bar, and some lady-- 474 00:26:26,084 --> 00:26:29,963 some gal that was apparently a scout for Abercrombie was like, um, 475 00:26:30,046 --> 00:26:32,465 "Will you come into the store tomorrow? You have a great look." 476 00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:35,302 We took a couple Polaroids, 477 00:26:35,385 --> 00:26:37,470 and then three weeks later, I was in Brazil. 478 00:26:38,263 --> 00:26:41,975 That was the first time I saw the ocean and traveled outside of Nebraska. 479 00:26:44,394 --> 00:26:48,064 People on crew would just insinuate to just be yourself, be original, 480 00:26:48,148 --> 00:26:49,733 just do whatever. 481 00:26:49,816 --> 00:26:52,068 You know, climb trees, jump in water. 482 00:26:52,652 --> 00:26:55,488 Bruce, if you caught his eye doing something natural, 483 00:26:56,031 --> 00:26:57,699 interacting with the wilderness, 484 00:26:57,782 --> 00:27:00,452 that would be a good way to get your picture taken. 485 00:27:00,952 --> 00:27:02,704 There would just be guys in a tree, 486 00:27:02,787 --> 00:27:06,458 just like, "Hey, Bruce! It's a tree, and I'm in it." 487 00:27:06,541 --> 00:27:09,836 Or just, like, doing push-ups on a curb. 488 00:27:09,919 --> 00:27:13,131 The guys were so testosteroney 'cause it's a bunch of ripped dudes. 489 00:27:13,214 --> 00:27:15,759 And then the guys are trying to impress the women. 490 00:27:15,842 --> 00:27:18,845 It's really… It's just, like, humanity at its basic level. 491 00:27:23,933 --> 00:27:25,310 [Sanchez] Three, four times a year, 492 00:27:25,393 --> 00:27:29,981 we got Bruce Weber photos to put up in our store. 493 00:27:31,107 --> 00:27:35,236 When you're excited about the unveil of the Bruce Weber photos… 494 00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:40,533 Who did they choose as the representative of Abercrombie & Fitch? 495 00:27:41,660 --> 00:27:43,787 There's other brands for-- for everybody. 496 00:27:45,121 --> 00:27:46,748 That's Abercrombie & Fitch. 497 00:27:46,831 --> 00:27:50,627 It behooved me to get out and recruit these types of people 498 00:27:51,127 --> 00:27:54,005 so that they could create an environment. 499 00:27:54,089 --> 00:27:55,757 How do you think you're gonna do? 500 00:27:56,341 --> 00:27:57,175 Pretty good. 501 00:27:57,759 --> 00:27:59,969 ♪ I'm head of the class ♪ 502 00:28:00,470 --> 00:28:02,263 ♪ I'm popular… ♪ 503 00:28:02,931 --> 00:28:06,726 [Denizet-Lewis] The stores would each focus on a particular college campus, 504 00:28:06,810 --> 00:28:11,981 and they would try to recruit the best-looking fraternity guys. 505 00:28:12,065 --> 00:28:14,359 If a fraternity guy was popular, 506 00:28:14,442 --> 00:28:16,986 other people would say, "All right, what's he wearing?" 507 00:28:17,070 --> 00:28:18,363 And wanna copy that. 508 00:28:18,446 --> 00:28:20,407 ♪ I'm the party star ♪ 509 00:28:20,490 --> 00:28:22,283 ♪ I'm popular ♪ 510 00:28:22,367 --> 00:28:27,330 The bet was that if we get the right guys on the right fraternities 511 00:28:27,414 --> 00:28:31,751 to wear the clothes and be ambassadors for the clothes, then that's gonna-- 512 00:28:31,835 --> 00:28:34,421 Other people are gonna wanna copy that. 513 00:28:34,504 --> 00:28:37,173 It was, like, pre-digital, like, influencer marketing. 514 00:28:37,257 --> 00:28:38,758 As a manager at Abercrombie, 515 00:28:38,842 --> 00:28:42,011 they teach you very early on about recruiting. 516 00:28:42,095 --> 00:28:44,389 You just-- You have to recruit, 517 00:28:44,472 --> 00:28:49,894 but not only do you have to recruit, you have to recruit good-looking people, 518 00:28:49,978 --> 00:28:52,063 and this is what good-looking looks like. 519 00:28:52,147 --> 00:28:53,773 We literally had a book. 520 00:28:54,607 --> 00:28:56,192 [female voice] Exhibiting the A&F look 521 00:28:56,276 --> 00:28:59,988 is a tremendously important part of the overall experience 522 00:29:00,071 --> 00:29:02,407 at the Abercrombie & Fitch stores. 523 00:29:02,490 --> 00:29:06,661 Our people in the store are an inspiration to the customer. 524 00:29:06,745 --> 00:29:12,459 A neatly combed, attractive, natural, classic hairstyle is acceptable. 525 00:29:13,084 --> 00:29:16,337 Dreadlocks are unacceptable for men and women. 526 00:29:17,589 --> 00:29:19,924 Gold chains are not acceptable for men. 527 00:29:20,467 --> 00:29:24,763 Women may wear a thin, short, delicate silver necklace. 528 00:29:24,846 --> 00:29:27,474 Brand representatives are required to wear 529 00:29:27,557 --> 00:29:30,018 appropriate undergarments at all times. 530 00:29:30,977 --> 00:29:32,020 Natural. 531 00:29:32,103 --> 00:29:33,313 American. 532 00:29:33,396 --> 00:29:34,606 Classic. 533 00:29:34,689 --> 00:29:36,399 The A&F look. 534 00:29:37,901 --> 00:29:43,281 No other mall brand went to the extreme that Abercrombie did 535 00:29:43,364 --> 00:29:48,870 in micromanaging the look of everything from the store 536 00:29:48,953 --> 00:29:52,624 down to, like, the person who was cleaning up the stockroom. 537 00:29:52,707 --> 00:29:55,502 Jeffries was an extreme-- 538 00:29:55,585 --> 00:29:58,254 He was very much a micromanager. 539 00:29:58,338 --> 00:30:03,384 I mean, if you look at the stores, they were absolutely pristine. Right? 540 00:30:03,468 --> 00:30:06,638 I mean, it was-- Every detail, Mike cared about. 541 00:30:07,597 --> 00:30:10,725 [Rupp] Mike Jeffries was well-known for his unannounced store visits. 542 00:30:10,809 --> 00:30:15,021 He cared about what stores looked like, and he wanted to see them in person. 543 00:30:15,104 --> 00:30:17,106 A lot of people have called them "blitzes." 544 00:30:17,190 --> 00:30:19,609 [Sanchez] So say a visit was on Friday. 545 00:30:19,692 --> 00:30:22,529 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 546 00:30:22,612 --> 00:30:24,614 you were doin' all-nights. 547 00:30:24,697 --> 00:30:28,034 This is where we gotta make sure, like, everything is spick-and-span. 548 00:30:28,117 --> 00:30:29,536 Everything gets wiped down. 549 00:30:29,619 --> 00:30:30,954 There's no dust anywhere. 550 00:30:31,037 --> 00:30:33,164 The moose head looks clean. 551 00:30:33,665 --> 00:30:37,460 But the thing that mattered most, day-of, was who was working. 552 00:30:37,544 --> 00:30:40,797 There were some people that you kept on staff just for visits. 553 00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:45,677 It wasn't, "Hey, your store's not hitting this number or hitting that number." 554 00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,346 It was, "You gotta get more good-looking people in here." 555 00:30:48,847 --> 00:30:52,642 The high-water mark, when we all finally knew that we made it, 556 00:30:52,725 --> 00:30:55,311 was when LFO came out with "Summer Girls." 557 00:30:55,395 --> 00:30:56,563 That LFO song. 558 00:30:56,646 --> 00:30:57,522 "Summer Girls." 559 00:30:57,605 --> 00:31:00,400 ♪ I like girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch ♪ 560 00:31:00,483 --> 00:31:02,360 "I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch." 561 00:31:02,443 --> 00:31:03,987 ♪ I'd take 'em if I had one wish ♪ 562 00:31:04,070 --> 00:31:06,739 "I think it's fly…" Something about summer. "…the summer." 563 00:31:06,823 --> 00:31:09,576 It came out in the summer. "We're doing something right." 564 00:31:10,618 --> 00:31:13,663 ♪ I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch ♪ 565 00:31:13,746 --> 00:31:15,582 ♪ I'd take her if I had one wish ♪ 566 00:31:16,165 --> 00:31:18,251 ♪ She's been gone since that summer… ♪ 567 00:31:18,334 --> 00:31:22,005 That was probably the coolest thing that had ever happened to Mike Jeffries. 568 00:31:22,505 --> 00:31:25,466 In that moment, he'd knew he'd-- he'd done what he wanted. 569 00:31:26,634 --> 00:31:29,512 From a purely creative point of view, 570 00:31:30,054 --> 00:31:31,472 he was a mad genius. 571 00:31:31,556 --> 00:31:33,516 He knows what he's doing and what he wants, 572 00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,686 and he's kinda like, "I don't care what anyone else is doing." 573 00:31:36,769 --> 00:31:41,858 "I'm gonna do what I think is beautiful, cool," you know, whatever. 574 00:31:41,941 --> 00:31:44,360 [sighs] And he did. He executed on it. 575 00:31:50,867 --> 00:31:55,413 So my first interaction with Abercrombie was receiving a catalog out of the blue. 576 00:31:55,496 --> 00:31:57,415 I don't know how I got on their mailing list. 577 00:31:57,498 --> 00:32:01,002 And I remember seeing these young people smiling and frolicking, 578 00:32:01,085 --> 00:32:03,171 and I was like, "When I'm in college, maybe… 579 00:32:03,671 --> 00:32:07,926 maybe I'm gonna hang out with my friends in a field, like, arm-to-arm like this 580 00:32:08,009 --> 00:32:09,594 and jump around and, I don't know, 581 00:32:09,677 --> 00:32:12,347 get in a dog pile like they do in these catalogs." 582 00:32:12,430 --> 00:32:13,723 [laughing] I don't know! 583 00:32:15,391 --> 00:32:17,769 My name's Phil Yu. I run a blog 584 00:32:17,852 --> 00:32:19,187 called Angry Asian Man 585 00:32:20,021 --> 00:32:23,775 to talk about my Asian American identity and my community. 586 00:32:24,609 --> 00:32:28,237 I remember some readers started sending photos to me about like, 587 00:32:28,321 --> 00:32:30,198 "Have you seen this shit at Abercrombie?" 588 00:32:30,281 --> 00:32:32,659 You know, and it was-- It was these T-shirts. 589 00:32:34,994 --> 00:32:39,332 Graphic tees for us were our personality. 590 00:32:40,792 --> 00:32:43,711 You know, we were moving at light speed. 591 00:32:43,795 --> 00:32:47,173 The graphic tee business was a one and done type thing, 592 00:32:47,256 --> 00:32:50,802 so you had to continuously produce art. 593 00:32:51,511 --> 00:32:55,223 All those stupid slogans we put on there and everything, that was us. 594 00:32:55,306 --> 00:32:56,599 We didn't have copywriters. 595 00:32:56,683 --> 00:32:59,018 They really wanted us to be irreverent. 596 00:32:59,102 --> 00:33:01,187 They really wanted us to be funny, 597 00:33:01,896 --> 00:33:06,109 relevant to that late teen, early 20s, like, college crowd. 598 00:33:07,276 --> 00:33:09,487 [Sheahan] One of the themes was Buddha Fest, 599 00:33:09,570 --> 00:33:13,324 and it had, like, a cliché Asian big fat Buddha. 600 00:33:13,408 --> 00:33:15,952 I do remember one that I got a kick out of that was like, 601 00:33:16,035 --> 00:33:19,122 "West Virginia, no lifeguards in this gene pool." 602 00:33:19,205 --> 00:33:20,331 I laughed at the time, 603 00:33:20,415 --> 00:33:24,002 and now I'm like, "That's really offensive and problematic." 604 00:33:24,085 --> 00:33:29,007 The second shirt on the table was "Juan more for the road." 605 00:33:29,090 --> 00:33:32,468 So they had a donkey holding a taco with a sombrero. 606 00:33:33,052 --> 00:33:34,679 The one that everybody remembers, 607 00:33:34,762 --> 00:33:38,933 Wong Brothers, advertising a fictional laundry service. 608 00:33:39,017 --> 00:33:41,728 The slogan was, "Two Wongs can make it white." 609 00:33:43,604 --> 00:33:45,398 Pop culture Orientalism, right? 610 00:33:45,481 --> 00:33:46,983 -[buzzer sounds] -[grunts] 611 00:33:47,066 --> 00:33:50,653 [Yu] It's all this stuff taken from people's understanding of Asians… 612 00:33:50,737 --> 00:33:51,612 [laughing] 613 00:33:51,696 --> 00:33:53,906 …if you just watched American TV and movies. 614 00:33:53,990 --> 00:33:55,408 [gong sounds] 615 00:33:55,491 --> 00:33:58,244 What's happenin', hot stuff? 616 00:33:58,327 --> 00:34:01,581 [Yu] So it's the kitschy font and the-- sort of the caricatures 617 00:34:01,664 --> 00:34:04,542 of the buck-toothed and the slant-eyed Asian, so… 618 00:34:05,043 --> 00:34:06,878 "Two Wongs can make it white." 619 00:34:08,921 --> 00:34:10,381 Asian Americans are often taught 620 00:34:10,465 --> 00:34:12,884 that you're supposed to just keep your head down, 621 00:34:12,967 --> 00:34:14,177 not rock the boat, 622 00:34:14,677 --> 00:34:17,430 especially as a lot of us are the children of immigrants. 623 00:34:17,513 --> 00:34:18,347 But I think 624 00:34:19,348 --> 00:34:22,351 at that moment, I was like, "It's okay to be angry about this." 625 00:34:25,021 --> 00:34:28,107 [Gruys] I don't know what it was, but, like, the kids, 626 00:34:28,191 --> 00:34:30,485 the consumers just loved wearing those tees, 627 00:34:30,568 --> 00:34:31,944 so we kept makin' 'em. 628 00:34:32,904 --> 00:34:33,821 And they were cheap. 629 00:34:33,905 --> 00:34:37,158 You could sell tees for, like, an 85% markup. 630 00:34:37,241 --> 00:34:38,993 Whenever something like this happens, 631 00:34:39,077 --> 00:34:41,996 I always imagined in my mind a scenario where somebody, like-- 632 00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,665 Man, if they just had one person who was like, 633 00:34:44,749 --> 00:34:46,417 "Maybe this is not a good idea." 634 00:34:46,501 --> 00:34:48,753 I had nothing to do with whatever, but I will say this. 635 00:34:48,836 --> 00:34:51,839 Two of the main team people were Asian Americans, 636 00:34:52,340 --> 00:34:54,759 which is why it got approved in the first place. 637 00:34:54,842 --> 00:34:58,930 You know, whenever-- This is-- I feel like you just dropped a bomb on me. 638 00:34:59,013 --> 00:35:02,016 In terms of-- What? There was an Asian designer there? 639 00:35:02,100 --> 00:35:03,309 Maybe there was somebody, 640 00:35:03,392 --> 00:35:07,480 and then, you know, your cover is-- is the one Asian guy in the room. 641 00:35:07,563 --> 00:35:10,566 It's the one guy who's like, "I don't…" "Do you find it offensive?" 642 00:35:10,650 --> 00:35:13,611 And is that guy really gonna be, like, "No." I mean, "Yeah." 643 00:35:13,694 --> 00:35:16,656 Or is he gonna say-- Or is he gonna flip over the table and be, like, 644 00:35:16,739 --> 00:35:19,200 "I-- No, I think this is really offensive to my identity." 645 00:35:19,283 --> 00:35:23,037 In this corporate, stuffy environment where everyone around you is white, 646 00:35:23,121 --> 00:35:24,080 and you're like-- 647 00:35:24,163 --> 00:35:27,166 I don't know if that's really a safe place to do that, right? 648 00:35:28,334 --> 00:35:30,044 [camera shutter clicking] 649 00:35:33,589 --> 00:35:35,633 This blatant racist product 650 00:35:35,716 --> 00:35:39,053 got a lot of Asian American students particularly enraged. 651 00:35:39,554 --> 00:35:41,055 They were hitting them where, 652 00:35:41,139 --> 00:35:43,683 "This was supposed to be my jam, supposed to be for me," 653 00:35:43,766 --> 00:35:47,019 and that's where the reaction really started to grow amongst students, 654 00:35:47,103 --> 00:35:48,604 Asian American student groups. 655 00:35:48,688 --> 00:35:50,273 [crowd yelling] 656 00:35:53,985 --> 00:35:58,573 There's always people who don't really see the pain behind something like that 657 00:35:58,656 --> 00:36:01,450 and just see it as a funny thing that happened. 658 00:36:01,534 --> 00:36:03,911 The protest was nonviolent and orderly, 659 00:36:03,995 --> 00:36:06,205 but the same cannot be said of the parking lot 660 00:36:06,289 --> 00:36:07,957 when they all went to drive home. 661 00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:09,667 [audience laughter] 662 00:36:10,668 --> 00:36:13,212 [producer] Let's talk about the Two Wongs shirt. 663 00:36:13,296 --> 00:36:16,299 That shirt-- That's one of the tees that I remember. [laughs] 664 00:36:16,382 --> 00:36:19,468 Mike would pull everything back from the stores, 665 00:36:19,552 --> 00:36:21,345 and we actually would burn them 666 00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:26,851 to make sure nobody ever ended up getting the merchandise. 667 00:36:28,102 --> 00:36:30,021 But they kept the "Juan more for the road." 668 00:36:30,104 --> 00:36:32,565 Clearly, it was, like, a donkey, you know. 669 00:36:33,065 --> 00:36:35,318 Obviously, they were insinuating something. 670 00:36:37,486 --> 00:36:39,363 [Yu] The poor publicist who has to write this, 671 00:36:39,447 --> 00:36:44,619 they actually said, "We thought that Asians would love these shirts." 672 00:36:44,702 --> 00:36:47,496 That's from a press release from-- from Abercrombie. 673 00:36:47,580 --> 00:36:51,500 We were always just trying to be quick-witted and things like that. 674 00:36:51,584 --> 00:36:54,879 And, um… I know that we made a couple mistakes. 675 00:36:54,962 --> 00:36:58,716 We kind of owned up to our responsibility, 676 00:36:58,799 --> 00:36:59,800 made it 677 00:37:00,927 --> 00:37:03,346 right as fast as we could, 678 00:37:03,429 --> 00:37:07,016 and then we kind of, you know, learned and moved on. 679 00:37:07,892 --> 00:37:11,062 Then we would get in trouble, and, "Don't do that again." 680 00:37:11,145 --> 00:37:13,439 "But do something just like it," you know. 681 00:37:14,106 --> 00:37:17,526 Obviously, it's from the top down if they approve those kinds of shirts, 682 00:37:17,610 --> 00:37:21,239 of what there… what might have been going on behind the scenes. 683 00:37:23,115 --> 00:37:25,451 You know, they're operating in a bubble, right? 684 00:37:25,534 --> 00:37:29,664 They're operating in a place where they don't see what it comes down to 685 00:37:29,747 --> 00:37:33,209 at that consumer level of this Asian kid looking at these shirts 686 00:37:33,292 --> 00:37:35,127 and being like, "What is this bullshit?" 687 00:37:35,211 --> 00:37:37,463 Or being confused. "Is this supposed to be cool?" 688 00:37:37,546 --> 00:37:41,342 Like, "This is all I see of myself when I look at pop culture." 689 00:37:41,425 --> 00:37:44,804 Like, "Maybe this is what I'm supposed to accept 690 00:37:44,887 --> 00:37:46,722 as an Asian American," you know. 691 00:37:47,723 --> 00:37:53,980 The first time I became aware of the image becoming problematic for me 692 00:37:54,063 --> 00:37:56,440 was Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. 693 00:37:56,524 --> 00:37:58,901 I think it came out in 2001, with Tobey Maguire. 694 00:37:58,985 --> 00:38:00,319 Flash, it was just an accident! 695 00:38:00,403 --> 00:38:04,073 If you know the comics, Peter Parker's biggest bully is Flash Thompson, 696 00:38:04,156 --> 00:38:08,286 and he's traditionally been a big, blond, like, asshole. 697 00:38:08,369 --> 00:38:11,622 In the movie, he is dressed head-to-toe in Abercrombie the entire time, 698 00:38:11,706 --> 00:38:13,916 and it really upset me. It really, really upset me. 699 00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,545 I was like, "That's not good." I knew it wasn't good. Know what I mean? 700 00:38:17,628 --> 00:38:20,047 'Cause something had shifted there, so… 701 00:38:20,131 --> 00:38:22,550 [producer] Before that, what did Abercrombie signify to you? 702 00:38:22,633 --> 00:38:25,761 It was-- It was a cool kid who would never do anything like that. 703 00:38:26,262 --> 00:38:28,889 ♪ I'm the head of the class ♪ 704 00:38:28,973 --> 00:38:31,100 ♪ I'm popular ♪ 705 00:38:31,183 --> 00:38:35,521 In 2003, I was a retail reporter at The Wall Street Journal, 706 00:38:35,604 --> 00:38:40,109 and, um, I'm in New York, visiting stores. 707 00:38:40,609 --> 00:38:44,071 A colleague and I walk into this American Eagle Outfitters store. 708 00:38:44,155 --> 00:38:47,033 My colleague immediately starts chatting up the manager. 709 00:38:47,116 --> 00:38:50,119 She asked, "How'd you end up at American Eagle Outfitters?" 710 00:38:50,202 --> 00:38:53,706 And she says, "I was a district manager for Abercrombie & Fitch, 711 00:38:53,789 --> 00:38:56,208 and then I moved over." And my colleague says, 712 00:38:56,292 --> 00:38:57,710 "Oh, that's interesting." 713 00:38:57,793 --> 00:39:02,298 "It's a slightly different culture, trying to keep everybody brand positive." 714 00:39:02,381 --> 00:39:07,219 And this manager just starts crying. 715 00:39:07,303 --> 00:39:10,014 And she's like, "I'm so happy here." 716 00:39:10,097 --> 00:39:12,391 "I get to hire who I want." 717 00:39:12,475 --> 00:39:16,020 She gestures to the guy who's leading women to the dressing room, 718 00:39:16,103 --> 00:39:18,731 who's, like, a light-skinned Black guy with dreadlocks. 719 00:39:19,231 --> 00:39:23,694 And my colleague sort of nods like she understands what is being said. 720 00:39:24,195 --> 00:39:26,197 I'm clearly not getting something here. 721 00:39:27,323 --> 00:39:32,453 So I started interviewing people who had Abercrombie & Fitch on their résumés, 722 00:39:32,536 --> 00:39:34,455 and, essentially, what I learned was, 723 00:39:34,538 --> 00:39:38,709 most people were recruited for the job on the basis of their looks. 724 00:39:40,586 --> 00:39:44,715 What I started to sense was that they were firing people too. 725 00:39:44,799 --> 00:39:47,510 And that was the thing that really got me, 726 00:39:47,593 --> 00:39:50,554 because that seemed like it maybe wasn't legal? 727 00:39:50,638 --> 00:39:57,061 So I finally found a manager, um, to sort of tell me, "Listen, 728 00:39:57,645 --> 00:40:02,942 you have to rank all your employees on the scale of, like, cool to rocks." 729 00:40:03,025 --> 00:40:04,360 "And if they aren't at least cool, 730 00:40:04,443 --> 00:40:07,238 then you have to zero them out off the schedule." 731 00:40:07,321 --> 00:40:09,073 It didn't matter what your sales were. 732 00:40:09,156 --> 00:40:14,203 All that mattered was that the employees that you took pictures of 733 00:40:14,286 --> 00:40:17,331 and sent back to headquarters were hot. 734 00:40:18,666 --> 00:40:20,292 Clearly this is illegal? 735 00:40:21,001 --> 00:40:21,919 Right? 736 00:40:23,838 --> 00:40:26,549 I wasn't ever scheduled a ton of hours. 737 00:40:26,632 --> 00:40:28,384 So I went to one of the managers, 738 00:40:28,467 --> 00:40:30,803 and I said, "Hey, can I have more day shifts?" 739 00:40:30,886 --> 00:40:33,889 And he said, "You know, there aren't any. They're packed." 740 00:40:33,973 --> 00:40:35,683 "All we have are these night shifts." 741 00:40:35,766 --> 00:40:40,187 I remember telling him, "I don't like vacuuming," you know. 742 00:40:40,271 --> 00:40:42,022 "I don't like cleaning the windows," 743 00:40:42,106 --> 00:40:46,068 and he told me, "But, Carla, you're such a good window washer." 744 00:40:46,152 --> 00:40:47,695 "You're so good at it." 745 00:40:47,778 --> 00:40:50,531 And I told him, "Well, you know, I can swap with someone." 746 00:40:50,614 --> 00:40:53,409 "My friend said she'd be fine to swap this four-hour shift." 747 00:40:53,492 --> 00:40:55,411 "She doesn't mind working at night." 748 00:40:55,494 --> 00:40:57,663 "Well, no, we don't like you guys to swap." 749 00:40:57,746 --> 00:41:00,124 "If you were assigned that shift, you were assigned it." 750 00:41:00,207 --> 00:41:03,502 So I complain to my girlfriend, "I can't believe this. What is going on?" 751 00:41:03,586 --> 00:41:06,255 She told me, "I bet they're not scheduling you because you're Black." 752 00:41:06,338 --> 00:41:08,215 "Like, no other Black people work there." 753 00:41:09,216 --> 00:41:11,302 When she said that, it was one of those, like… 754 00:41:11,385 --> 00:41:14,346 "Oh, I know. Like, in the heart of my heart, I know." 755 00:41:14,430 --> 00:41:15,473 "I know that's why, 756 00:41:15,556 --> 00:41:17,600 but maybe I can do something to overcome that." 757 00:41:17,683 --> 00:41:20,978 "This is a company. This isn't, like, one person 758 00:41:21,979 --> 00:41:22,813 stopping me." 759 00:41:22,897 --> 00:41:25,858 And then after that, I was not on the schedule. 760 00:41:25,941 --> 00:41:29,570 And I remember asking him, "What should I do? Do I still work here?" 761 00:41:29,653 --> 00:41:32,156 "I haven't been on the schedule in two months," 762 00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:34,742 and he's like, "No, you do. Just keep calling us." 763 00:41:35,367 --> 00:41:37,953 I knew I had been fired, and I just moved on. 764 00:41:38,037 --> 00:41:39,663 I mean, there wasn't a resignation. 765 00:41:39,747 --> 00:41:43,501 There wasn't anyone that called me. I just… It was over. 766 00:41:45,377 --> 00:41:48,380 Where our store was was in very close proximity to UC Irvine. 767 00:41:48,464 --> 00:41:52,301 UC Irvine is known as UCI, University of Chinese and Indians. 768 00:41:52,384 --> 00:41:53,802 It's, like, 75% Asian. 769 00:41:53,886 --> 00:41:56,722 Korean, Indian, Chinese, Japanese. 770 00:41:56,805 --> 00:41:58,849 So it wasn't a surprise 771 00:41:58,933 --> 00:42:02,853 that a lot of the staff were of Asian descent. 772 00:42:03,521 --> 00:42:09,693 We finished the holiday season, and we're notified by a note saying, 773 00:42:09,777 --> 00:42:14,323 "If you don't have a paycheck," you know, "you've been let go for the season." 774 00:42:14,406 --> 00:42:16,784 My name wasn't on the list, 775 00:42:16,867 --> 00:42:21,539 so I talked to my other friends. 776 00:42:21,622 --> 00:42:25,000 I was like, "My name wasn't on the list. Did you guys--" 777 00:42:25,084 --> 00:42:26,835 They're like, "We're not on the list." 778 00:42:26,919 --> 00:42:28,712 And I was like, "That's super weird." 779 00:42:28,796 --> 00:42:32,007 Then we talked to our assistant manager, who's Asian American. 780 00:42:32,091 --> 00:42:35,719 He said the real reason is because after the corporate blitz, 781 00:42:35,803 --> 00:42:38,931 one of the people from corporate went around, 782 00:42:39,014 --> 00:42:42,309 and they noticed a bunch of Asian people in the store. 783 00:42:42,393 --> 00:42:45,062 They said, "You need more staff that looks like this." 784 00:42:45,145 --> 00:42:47,773 And they pointed to an Abercrombie poster, 785 00:42:47,856 --> 00:42:50,359 and it was-- it was a Caucasian model. 786 00:42:54,363 --> 00:42:57,992 It hurt because I had such a positive experience with this company, 787 00:42:58,075 --> 00:42:59,577 and to find out they were like, 788 00:42:59,660 --> 00:43:01,996 "No, we don't want you because of the way you look," 789 00:43:02,079 --> 00:43:03,497 it actually was very hurtful. 790 00:43:04,456 --> 00:43:06,208 Then I took all the posters down. 791 00:43:06,292 --> 00:43:09,920 It was because I didn't look like those people in the photograph 792 00:43:10,004 --> 00:43:12,256 that that's why I didn't work there anymore. 793 00:43:12,756 --> 00:43:13,841 I was mad. 794 00:43:13,924 --> 00:43:18,721 But what are you gonna do? We're, like, 21-year-olds. What do you do? 795 00:43:18,804 --> 00:43:21,557 It seemed super explicit. 796 00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:24,518 I went to the store. 797 00:43:24,602 --> 00:43:26,812 I spoke with whoever was working there, 798 00:43:26,895 --> 00:43:28,981 and she said, "I'm sorry. We can't rehire you." 799 00:43:29,064 --> 00:43:30,816 And I asked, "Why not?" 800 00:43:31,567 --> 00:43:34,570 And she said, "My manager said we can't rehire you 801 00:43:34,653 --> 00:43:38,073 'cause we already have too many Filipinos working at this store." 802 00:43:39,783 --> 00:43:41,744 I was like, "Are you serious?" 803 00:43:41,827 --> 00:43:45,623 And she looked pretty uncomfortable, and she was like, "Yeah." 804 00:43:46,624 --> 00:43:48,709 At no point did I ever say I was Filipino, 805 00:43:48,792 --> 00:43:51,629 so that was a guess on the part of the person that worked there 806 00:43:51,712 --> 00:43:52,921 that I was Filipino. 807 00:43:53,631 --> 00:43:57,051 I remember telling my parents, and I told close friends. 808 00:43:57,134 --> 00:44:01,513 They heard it and they very much agreed with me that that was fucked up. 809 00:44:01,597 --> 00:44:04,391 I guess people didn't know what to do, including my parents. 810 00:44:04,475 --> 00:44:06,393 Like, what do you tell your kid 811 00:44:06,477 --> 00:44:11,106 when someone says that we can't hire you 'cause of who you are? 812 00:44:11,190 --> 00:44:13,567 I talked to my mom about everything going on, 813 00:44:13,651 --> 00:44:16,528 and she basically said, 814 00:44:16,612 --> 00:44:19,782 "I'm really surprised that you even wanted to work there." 815 00:44:19,865 --> 00:44:22,117 She's like, "I'm sure you were fine to clean up, 816 00:44:22,701 --> 00:44:26,121 but that store made it clear, from my eyes, 817 00:44:26,205 --> 00:44:28,415 that they didn't want people like us there." 818 00:44:28,499 --> 00:44:31,168 She's like, "I honestly didn't expect anything else." 819 00:44:31,251 --> 00:44:35,839 "That store, everything about that store screamed that we were an other." 820 00:44:35,923 --> 00:44:36,924 "We didn't fit there." 821 00:44:37,841 --> 00:44:39,593 [male voice] Walk into any upscale boutique, 822 00:44:39,677 --> 00:44:43,764 and you'll see salespeople who look like they walked off the fashion pages. 823 00:44:43,847 --> 00:44:47,476 Retailers seek out workers whose look they feel will sell clothes. 824 00:44:47,559 --> 00:44:51,271 But can maintaining that look become a form of racial discrimination? 825 00:44:51,355 --> 00:44:53,774 That's what the firm of Abercrombie & Fitch 826 00:44:53,857 --> 00:44:55,025 is being accused of. 827 00:44:55,109 --> 00:44:58,904 The nine plaintiffs in this new suit claim they were fired or not hired 828 00:44:58,987 --> 00:45:00,906 because they weren't white enough. 829 00:45:00,989 --> 00:45:02,950 When I did get scheduled, 830 00:45:03,033 --> 00:45:05,828 I would have to come in at closing time. 831 00:45:05,911 --> 00:45:11,083 I was one of the named plaintiffs on the Abercrombie lawsuit. 832 00:45:11,166 --> 00:45:13,585 Joining me now are two of the plaintiffs in this suit, 833 00:45:13,669 --> 00:45:15,963 Anthony Ocampo and Jennifer Lu. 834 00:45:16,046 --> 00:45:19,299 I am one of the people that sued Abercrombie. [laughs] 835 00:45:19,383 --> 00:45:23,137 [Sheahan] We wanted to represent the people that this had happened to 836 00:45:23,220 --> 00:45:27,891 and give them a voice and make sure that Abercrombie was held accountable. 837 00:45:27,975 --> 00:45:29,727 All-American doesn't mean all-white. 838 00:45:29,810 --> 00:45:32,771 One of my friends, who's Mexican-American, was working for MALDEF, 839 00:45:32,855 --> 00:45:35,441 the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, 840 00:45:35,524 --> 00:45:37,651 and he was working for Tom Saenz, 841 00:45:37,735 --> 00:45:41,447 and it turns out that Tom had heard other rumblings 842 00:45:41,530 --> 00:45:44,199 of people being discriminated at Abercrombie. 843 00:45:46,076 --> 00:45:48,412 [Saenz] In this case, I could go to the mall 844 00:45:48,495 --> 00:45:52,708 and verify what our client had told us, and so I did that. 845 00:45:52,791 --> 00:45:55,210 I would go into the A&F store, 846 00:45:55,294 --> 00:45:58,422 and I would look at who the retail workers were. 847 00:45:58,505 --> 00:46:00,716 And then I'd literally cross the hall 848 00:46:00,799 --> 00:46:03,218 and go to a similar retail establishment, 849 00:46:03,302 --> 00:46:05,179 whether it was Old Navy 850 00:46:05,262 --> 00:46:09,266 or Banana Republic or the Gap, 851 00:46:09,349 --> 00:46:11,602 and the contrast was just striking. 852 00:46:11,685 --> 00:46:13,103 In those other stores, 853 00:46:13,187 --> 00:46:16,774 you would see a workforce that looked like Southern California, 854 00:46:16,857 --> 00:46:20,861 mostly young people of color doing the retail work. 855 00:46:20,944 --> 00:46:22,196 At Abercrombie & Fitch, 856 00:46:22,279 --> 00:46:26,241 it was almost entirely white retail workers. 857 00:46:26,325 --> 00:46:29,244 We're not talking about a single individual who was denied a job, 858 00:46:29,328 --> 00:46:32,372 as terrible as that is and as unlawful as that is. 859 00:46:32,456 --> 00:46:35,876 We're talking about practices going on across the country 860 00:46:35,959 --> 00:46:39,713 at hundreds of stores affecting thousands of students. 861 00:46:41,006 --> 00:46:45,719 It was actually difficult to find folks who could be plaintiffs, 862 00:46:45,803 --> 00:46:48,806 and that's in part because there were so few people of color 863 00:46:48,889 --> 00:46:51,350 who were employed by Abercrombie & Fitch. 864 00:46:51,433 --> 00:46:54,895 My younger sister text me, or called me. 865 00:46:54,978 --> 00:46:58,482 I don't think we were texting then. I think it was way too expensive! 866 00:46:58,565 --> 00:46:59,983 But she called me and said, 867 00:47:00,067 --> 00:47:03,278 "I saw this thing on the Internet about Abercrombie & Fitch 868 00:47:03,362 --> 00:47:05,531 in a racial discrimination lawsuit," 869 00:47:05,614 --> 00:47:09,284 and she's like, "They definitely racially discriminated against you!" 870 00:47:09,368 --> 00:47:11,370 [laughs] Um, "You should call them." 871 00:47:11,453 --> 00:47:16,750 I was like, "I wonder if what happened to me was 'bad enough'." 872 00:47:16,834 --> 00:47:18,919 You know? If that's some-- Does it even-- 873 00:47:19,002 --> 00:47:21,588 If I tell them, would they just be like, "Just move on"? 874 00:47:21,672 --> 00:47:23,632 There was still that piece of, 875 00:47:23,715 --> 00:47:25,425 "It wasn't that bad," 876 00:47:25,509 --> 00:47:28,679 um, where if you look at things like racism 877 00:47:28,762 --> 00:47:31,223 or sexism or homophobia that… 878 00:47:31,849 --> 00:47:35,060 It does-- Things don't have to look "that bad." 879 00:47:35,143 --> 00:47:37,062 Someone doesn't have to call you-- 880 00:47:37,145 --> 00:47:40,858 Someone doesn't have to call me a nigger in the middle of Abercrombie & Fitch 881 00:47:40,941 --> 00:47:43,610 for it to be "bad enough." 882 00:47:43,694 --> 00:47:48,615 Um, but, you know, 19-year-old Carla, I'm thinking, "Well, I don't know." 883 00:47:48,699 --> 00:47:51,034 I've never seen racism that explicit. 884 00:47:51,118 --> 00:47:52,661 I was really pissed off. 885 00:47:52,744 --> 00:47:55,038 Like, I was enraged, and it never went away. 886 00:47:55,122 --> 00:47:57,875 And so when I was invited to be part of the lawsuit, 887 00:47:57,958 --> 00:47:59,042 I thought, "Oh, okay." 888 00:47:59,126 --> 00:48:04,131 "Here's an opportunity to… to call Abercrombie on their bullshit 889 00:48:04,214 --> 00:48:06,800 of trying to say they're an all-American brand, 890 00:48:06,884 --> 00:48:09,970 and yet the way they're maintaining this image of all-American 891 00:48:10,053 --> 00:48:13,891 is to hire a bunch of white folks and fire a bunch of people of color." 892 00:48:13,974 --> 00:48:17,644 [man 13] We just asked them, what was their experience working for Abercrombie, 893 00:48:17,728 --> 00:48:20,022 attempting to apply to work at Abercrombie, 894 00:48:20,105 --> 00:48:25,736 and themes started to emerge of this strong, strong preference for white people 895 00:48:25,819 --> 00:48:28,989 over African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, 896 00:48:29,072 --> 00:48:31,742 anybody who didn't fit this particular look. 897 00:48:31,825 --> 00:48:36,371 I was sick of getting my schedule back every week with lines through names. 898 00:48:36,455 --> 00:48:37,998 Essentially telling people 899 00:48:38,081 --> 00:48:39,958 they don't look good enough. 900 00:48:40,042 --> 00:48:43,837 I can't look the people that work for me that wanna be there in the eye and say, 901 00:48:43,921 --> 00:48:47,215 you know, lie to them and say, "Oh, we don't have hours." 902 00:48:48,550 --> 00:48:50,719 When it's because they weren't pretty enough. 903 00:48:51,470 --> 00:48:55,098 [Barrientos] Jahan talked to us about what Abercrombie was saying. 904 00:48:55,182 --> 00:48:58,101 It wasn't that we were being racially discriminated against. 905 00:48:58,185 --> 00:49:01,480 It was that we weren't good-looking enough to work on the floor. 906 00:49:01,563 --> 00:49:03,899 We're just-- just ugly! [laughs] 907 00:49:03,982 --> 00:49:05,859 It was seriously laughable. We… 908 00:49:06,401 --> 00:49:09,363 When we got together, we were like, "Are you kidding me? What a joke." 909 00:49:09,446 --> 00:49:12,449 I guess it's better that than saying, 910 00:49:12,532 --> 00:49:14,910 "We racially discriminate against these people." 911 00:49:15,577 --> 00:49:18,622 [laughs] But it was a joke. It was seriously a joke. 912 00:49:23,877 --> 00:49:27,255 [Sanchez] Abercrombie got sued in a class-action lawsuit 913 00:49:27,339 --> 00:49:29,758 for putting brown and Black people in the back. 914 00:49:36,014 --> 00:49:37,557 Whoo! 915 00:49:37,641 --> 00:49:42,104 Abercrombie & Fitch denied the allegations but settled-- but settled the suit. 916 00:49:42,187 --> 00:49:45,941 Abercrombie really knew that they had a lot to hide 917 00:49:46,024 --> 00:49:48,360 and offered them a big settlement right away. 918 00:49:48,860 --> 00:49:53,865 [Berfield] Abercrombie & Fitch was required to pay almost $50 million 919 00:49:55,784 --> 00:49:57,160 and to make some changes. 920 00:49:59,579 --> 00:50:02,541 Abercrombie agreed to enter into a consent decree. 921 00:50:19,933 --> 00:50:25,731 [Berfield] So Abercrombie had to create the position of Chief Diversity Officer. 922 00:50:27,315 --> 00:50:28,859 On one hand, like, great opportunity 923 00:50:28,942 --> 00:50:32,571 to take a company, you know, that really needs you. 924 00:50:32,654 --> 00:50:34,156 [laughs] 925 00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:36,408 "Do they want you?" is the other question. 926 00:50:39,703 --> 00:50:43,540 I got a call from a search firm. "Listen, there's an opportunity in Ohio." 927 00:50:43,623 --> 00:50:46,460 "It's a brand called A&F." I said, "I don't know what that is." 928 00:50:46,543 --> 00:50:48,754 So I went to the mall and tried to figure it out. 929 00:50:48,837 --> 00:50:52,424 I walked around, I shopped and I looked, and I said, "Oh. It's different." 930 00:50:55,802 --> 00:50:57,554 I began to figure out what it was about, 931 00:50:57,637 --> 00:50:59,765 which was figuring out how to reinvent a brand 932 00:50:59,848 --> 00:51:04,269 from the perspective of D&I, which at the time was not a function. 933 00:51:04,352 --> 00:51:07,064 There was not an office, not a discipline. There was no muscle. 934 00:51:07,147 --> 00:51:08,982 I had to figure out how to put it all together. 935 00:51:09,066 --> 00:51:11,234 I said, "Well, you've been praying to God." 936 00:51:11,318 --> 00:51:12,986 "You've been saying you need something big." 937 00:51:13,070 --> 00:51:15,864 "I guess he's telling you right now, this is probably it." 938 00:51:17,866 --> 00:51:20,619 So I asked about the reporting relationship, 939 00:51:20,702 --> 00:51:22,913 which was the biggest thing for me to figure out, 940 00:51:22,996 --> 00:51:25,707 and I knew that it would be to the CEO and chairman. 941 00:51:28,293 --> 00:51:30,337 The work there had inherent challenges. 942 00:51:30,420 --> 00:51:33,090 I had to figure out how to navigate a lot of them. 943 00:51:33,173 --> 00:51:35,008 Some of the challenges were around, 944 00:51:35,092 --> 00:51:40,055 "How do you create a brand with fewer contradictions?" 945 00:51:49,189 --> 00:51:52,192 We approach people every day with our inclusive mindset 946 00:51:52,275 --> 00:51:53,860 that embraces our diversity. 947 00:51:53,944 --> 00:51:56,404 -Come work with me in New York. -Arizona. 948 00:51:56,488 --> 00:51:57,531 -Florida. -Belgium. 949 00:51:57,614 --> 00:51:58,824 -Spain. -Hong Kong. 950 00:51:58,907 --> 00:52:00,158 -Germany. -[in unison] The UK. 951 00:52:04,079 --> 00:52:07,666 Someone like myself going into those circumstances and situations, 952 00:52:07,749 --> 00:52:08,834 you understand, like, 953 00:52:09,835 --> 00:52:12,629 maybe this is a form of "tokenism." 954 00:52:13,213 --> 00:52:19,261 Now, you could either say, "No way am I going to be a part of that," 955 00:52:19,344 --> 00:52:23,598 or you can look at it as an opportunity 956 00:52:23,682 --> 00:52:26,977 and then open that door even wider for people like yourself 957 00:52:27,060 --> 00:52:31,815 and others who haven't necessarily had that sort of access or opportunity. 958 00:52:32,482 --> 00:52:35,485 [Sanchez] I was a recruiter for a couple years, developing relationships 959 00:52:35,569 --> 00:52:38,613 on historically Black colleges and universities. 960 00:52:39,114 --> 00:52:42,617 As a brown man who very much appears to be white, 961 00:52:42,701 --> 00:52:44,411 wearing all Abercrombie & Fitch, 962 00:52:44,494 --> 00:52:48,373 'cause that's what we're required to do on campus, you're-- 963 00:52:48,456 --> 00:52:52,377 At first, you're getting some dirty looks, and rightfully so. 964 00:52:52,460 --> 00:52:53,795 When I walked in, 965 00:52:54,963 --> 00:52:57,340 I think 90% of their population was white. 966 00:52:57,924 --> 00:52:59,384 By year five or six, 967 00:52:59,467 --> 00:53:03,221 population went above 53% non-white. 968 00:53:05,891 --> 00:53:10,187 When I transitioned over to my role in Diversity & Inclusion, 969 00:53:10,770 --> 00:53:16,109 my first meeting where I was with the store's leadership, 970 00:53:16,193 --> 00:53:19,654 and they were talking about what we wanted in the stores, 971 00:53:20,238 --> 00:53:25,076 the free, sort of, free flow of how we talked about beauty 972 00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:27,454 and who was good-looking, who was not good-looking, 973 00:53:27,537 --> 00:53:29,331 or that person's nose was this or that, 974 00:53:29,414 --> 00:53:32,417 I was like, "I can't believe we literally talk about people 975 00:53:32,500 --> 00:53:35,212 and dissect people's features like this." 976 00:53:35,295 --> 00:53:39,341 Or, like, it would be written in a, you know, like, the interview, 977 00:53:39,424 --> 00:53:41,009 like, "Nope," like… 978 00:53:41,092 --> 00:53:44,387 It was just-- I couldn't believe it, to be honest with you. I was shocked. 979 00:53:44,971 --> 00:53:47,057 [Tkacik] Brand reps were no longer called "brand reps." 980 00:53:47,140 --> 00:53:50,810 They were called either "impact," and that meant that you went to the back, 981 00:53:50,894 --> 00:53:54,314 or "model," and that meant you could be up front. 982 00:53:54,397 --> 00:53:56,483 I think that, like, the idea was that 983 00:53:56,566 --> 00:54:00,654 calling their minimum wage retail employees "models," 984 00:54:00,737 --> 00:54:03,949 you know, Abercrombie could get away with anything 985 00:54:04,032 --> 00:54:06,243 that a modeling agency could get away with. 986 00:54:06,326 --> 00:54:10,830 They never put it in words that they were to be good-looking post-consent decree, 987 00:54:10,914 --> 00:54:15,418 and I think they were more careful about not necessarily using that word, 988 00:54:15,502 --> 00:54:17,045 but they took care of it 989 00:54:17,128 --> 00:54:20,882 when they got it approved with the consent decree to call them models. 990 00:54:21,383 --> 00:54:25,220 You took care of it. Like, nothin' changed as far as that went. 991 00:54:25,303 --> 00:54:28,014 [producer] So, what if an ugly person applied to be a model? 992 00:54:28,098 --> 00:54:28,974 They interviewed. 993 00:54:30,141 --> 00:54:33,520 They went through the same interview process that the other folks went through. 994 00:54:34,020 --> 00:54:36,231 [producer] But does that mean they had just as little shot 995 00:54:36,314 --> 00:54:38,316 pre- and post-consent decree of getting a job? 996 00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:39,234 Oh yeah. 997 00:54:39,943 --> 00:54:40,777 Yeah. 998 00:54:42,404 --> 00:54:46,199 [Tkacik] The consent decree did not force leadership to change at all. 999 00:54:46,283 --> 00:54:49,703 The entire leadership structure remained in place. 1000 00:54:49,786 --> 00:54:53,581 At that point, Jeffries still had almost 10% of the stock. 1001 00:54:53,665 --> 00:54:56,876 Um, so nothing, nothing changed at all. 1002 00:54:58,378 --> 00:55:01,006 A lot of these things come from the top down. 1003 00:55:02,048 --> 00:55:04,718 Between Jeffries and Bruce Weber, 1004 00:55:04,801 --> 00:55:08,346 we have some really troubling behavior. 1005 00:55:15,979 --> 00:55:18,481 Bruce Weber was able to take advantage of his power more 1006 00:55:18,565 --> 00:55:20,817 because he was so infamous and so out there. 1007 00:55:20,900 --> 00:55:22,736 It was very well known with Bruce 1008 00:55:22,819 --> 00:55:24,779 that he… liked… 1009 00:55:26,072 --> 00:55:26,990 young men. 1010 00:55:27,490 --> 00:55:30,785 He's gonna invite you over and try his "good touch, bad touch" thing. 1011 00:55:30,869 --> 00:55:31,786 You would 1012 00:55:32,871 --> 00:55:34,164 put your hand on your chest, 1013 00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:39,294 and he'd put his hand on your hand, kind of like talking to relax. 1014 00:55:39,377 --> 00:55:42,922 And then it was, "I'm gonna lower your hand." 1015 00:55:43,006 --> 00:55:45,300 "Tell me when to stop." 1016 00:55:45,383 --> 00:55:47,218 My hand didn't move. [laughs] 1017 00:55:47,302 --> 00:55:48,511 So he's like-- he's like, 1018 00:55:48,595 --> 00:55:51,014 "No, we're gonna lower your hand, and then when I--" 1019 00:55:51,097 --> 00:55:53,975 And I'm like, "No, that's… We're just… We're good." 1020 00:55:54,059 --> 00:55:57,562 There was a guy that would get a call from Bruce. 1021 00:55:57,645 --> 00:55:59,898 He would get invited to come over for dinner. 1022 00:56:00,648 --> 00:56:03,360 Like, "Hey, you should come over. I'm gonna have dinner." 1023 00:56:03,443 --> 00:56:05,195 "Play with my dogs." Blah, blah, blah. 1024 00:56:05,278 --> 00:56:08,031 Then they'd go over, and I would not see them the next day. 1025 00:56:08,531 --> 00:56:11,284 It was day three, and all of a sudden, like, the phone rings, 1026 00:56:11,368 --> 00:56:14,913 and I'm like, "Oh, I know what that is." 1027 00:56:14,996 --> 00:56:20,043 "Hey, Bobby. So I'm sending you a car to come over for dinner." 1028 00:56:20,126 --> 00:56:24,672 And at this moment, the moment is like, I'm gonna go home or not. 1029 00:56:24,756 --> 00:56:27,008 "Yeah, so I'm not gonna be able to make it." 1030 00:56:27,092 --> 00:56:30,053 And he's like, "What? No, you have to come. It's great for your career." 1031 00:56:30,136 --> 00:56:33,515 So I'm like, "No, I'm cool, Bruce, but thank you very much." 1032 00:56:33,598 --> 00:56:36,434 And all of a sudden, my phone rings in probably one minute. 1033 00:56:36,518 --> 00:56:39,979 Let's say less than two minutes, it rang again. I was like, "What?" 1034 00:56:40,063 --> 00:56:42,190 And I pick it up, and he's like, "Hey, Bobby." 1035 00:56:42,273 --> 00:56:45,568 "Unfortunately, you're gonna be cut, and your flight's ready." 1036 00:56:45,652 --> 00:56:49,739 "And your bags… Get your bags ready. And then you have a flight tonight." 1037 00:56:49,823 --> 00:56:52,575 It was just like, in that instant, I was done. 1038 00:56:54,786 --> 00:56:56,538 [Daharsh] And then you had Michael Jeffries. 1039 00:56:57,414 --> 00:57:01,126 And it was like he was just there to have fun on the shoots. 1040 00:57:02,335 --> 00:57:04,712 He-- he very clearly was into young men too. 1041 00:57:05,296 --> 00:57:08,049 But he was just so weird that-- Who knows what the fuck-- 1042 00:57:08,133 --> 00:57:10,218 I don't know what that dude was into. 1043 00:57:10,301 --> 00:57:12,554 It seemed like they were always implementing, 1044 00:57:13,054 --> 00:57:15,014 like, a new step to the process. 1045 00:57:15,974 --> 00:57:20,979 One of which was you had to go into, like, this tent 1046 00:57:21,062 --> 00:57:22,564 that was closed off, 1047 00:57:22,647 --> 00:57:26,401 and it was just Bruce, Bruce Weber, and Michael Jeffries in there. 1048 00:57:27,110 --> 00:57:32,449 Literally, it was an interview for them to see if they liked your personality, 1049 00:57:32,532 --> 00:57:34,784 who you were, and what you brought to the table. 1050 00:57:36,077 --> 00:57:40,707 [Berfield] When he ran Abercrombie, he always sold clothes to women and girls, 1051 00:57:40,790 --> 00:57:44,294 but what I think most people saw 1052 00:57:44,377 --> 00:57:46,421 and, you know, responded to 1053 00:57:46,504 --> 00:57:48,882 was the male image and the male form. 1054 00:57:49,841 --> 00:57:52,594 [Tkacik] I don't even think Mike realized 1055 00:57:52,677 --> 00:57:55,472 that he was also a gay icon. 1056 00:57:56,681 --> 00:58:00,685 It was known or presumed that he was gay, 1057 00:58:01,269 --> 00:58:03,938 but he was very secretive about his personal life. 1058 00:58:06,191 --> 00:58:08,651 In the early 2000s, 1059 00:58:08,735 --> 00:58:12,197 Mike Jeffries was still very much closeted. 1060 00:58:13,448 --> 00:58:16,534 [Berfield] Jeffries had been married, had a son. 1061 00:58:16,618 --> 00:58:18,620 [Tkacik] His wife was mostly out of the picture, 1062 00:58:18,703 --> 00:58:21,831 and eventually his life partner, Matthew Smith, 1063 00:58:21,915 --> 00:58:24,501 sort of came on within the company. 1064 00:58:24,584 --> 00:58:29,589 There's a lot that was probably going on internally with Mike Jeffries 1065 00:58:29,672 --> 00:58:33,009 that very few people would have been privy to. 1066 00:58:34,385 --> 00:58:38,097 [Abadsidis] He was out of control. I mean, it was really out of control. 1067 00:58:38,181 --> 00:58:41,893 It was like he had a bunch of terrible plastic surgeries. 1068 00:58:42,644 --> 00:58:44,062 He wanted to be young. 1069 00:58:44,729 --> 00:58:47,440 He was chasing youth, too, you know? It's an old story. 1070 00:58:49,526 --> 00:58:52,612 I was fascinated by Mike. I was fascinated by the company. 1071 00:58:52,695 --> 00:58:59,410 And Mike was just this strange, bizarre, interesting man. 1072 00:59:00,203 --> 00:59:02,622 I desperately wanted to write about the company. 1073 00:59:02,705 --> 00:59:04,958 I desperately wanted to get to their headquarters. 1074 00:59:05,041 --> 00:59:06,042 They called it Campus. 1075 00:59:10,129 --> 00:59:13,967 Then one day, I get a call from an editor at The New York Times Magazine, 1076 00:59:14,050 --> 00:59:15,969 where I had been writing for a few years, 1077 00:59:16,052 --> 00:59:19,472 and they say, "Do you wanna do a story about Abercrombie & Fitch?" 1078 00:59:20,056 --> 00:59:23,393 I said, "Absolutely, I'd like to do this story. How did you get access?" 1079 00:59:23,476 --> 00:59:24,852 They said, "They invited us." 1080 00:59:25,603 --> 00:59:26,854 It's still a question to me 1081 00:59:26,938 --> 00:59:29,274 about why Mike had rejected so many offers 1082 00:59:29,357 --> 00:59:32,735 to write about his brand, but suddenly I was there. 1083 00:59:34,821 --> 00:59:38,324 He talked about it. He said, "This is a diva-free zone." 1084 00:59:38,825 --> 00:59:40,201 In a way, he was the diva. 1085 00:59:40,285 --> 00:59:42,787 He was making all of the decisions. 1086 00:59:43,454 --> 00:59:45,873 They had model stores on the campus. 1087 00:59:45,957 --> 00:59:47,292 I watched him walk through 1088 00:59:47,375 --> 00:59:51,796 and obsessively look at how the jeans fell on every mannequin. 1089 00:59:53,047 --> 00:59:54,507 Going through the store with him 1090 00:59:54,591 --> 01:00:00,930 was revealing of his very clear, sort of traditional sense 1091 01:00:01,014 --> 01:00:03,016 of masculinity and femininity. 1092 01:00:03,099 --> 01:00:06,311 Saying things like, "We need to make this dude look more like a dude." 1093 01:00:06,394 --> 01:00:10,064 Uh, for the mannequin, "We don't want her to look too butch." 1094 01:00:10,148 --> 01:00:11,608 That's exactly what he said. 1095 01:00:12,150 --> 01:00:17,655 He was going through the racks of Abercrombie girls. 1096 01:00:17,739 --> 01:00:19,782 He picked up a pair of corduroys 1097 01:00:19,866 --> 01:00:22,785 that, I guess to him, seemed too masculine. 1098 01:00:22,869 --> 01:00:25,913 He said, "Who the fuck are you designing for?" 1099 01:00:25,997 --> 01:00:27,749 "Dykes on trikes?" 1100 01:00:27,832 --> 01:00:33,296 That language had, um… went a little beyond, um… 1101 01:00:33,379 --> 01:00:36,007 what was usually implicit, and became explicit, 1102 01:00:36,090 --> 01:00:40,345 which is that we're not just designing for men and women, 1103 01:00:40,428 --> 01:00:41,346 girls and boys. 1104 01:00:41,429 --> 01:00:44,932 We're designing for sexy women and sexy men, 1105 01:00:45,016 --> 01:00:47,685 and sexy girls and sexy boys, 1106 01:00:47,769 --> 01:00:49,771 and sexy meant hetero sexy, 1107 01:00:49,854 --> 01:00:52,231 not "dykes." 1108 01:00:52,315 --> 01:00:55,526 I was really interested in psychoanalyzing him. [laughs] 1109 01:00:55,610 --> 01:00:58,529 Like, I mean, I wanted to figure out 1110 01:00:59,697 --> 01:01:00,865 who this guy was. 1111 01:01:01,741 --> 01:01:04,535 So I asked him about all the high-profile controversies, 1112 01:01:04,619 --> 01:01:05,995 the lawsuits, 1113 01:01:06,579 --> 01:01:09,207 and he got incredibly defensive. 1114 01:01:09,290 --> 01:01:11,793 And he ended up saying things that were, 1115 01:01:11,876 --> 01:01:14,379 like, too… too honest. 1116 01:01:14,462 --> 01:01:16,089 [no audio] 1117 01:01:16,172 --> 01:01:19,092 [Denizet-Lewis] He said, "Are we exclusionary? Absolutely." 1118 01:01:19,175 --> 01:01:22,136 He said, "Not everyone can wear our clothes." 1119 01:01:22,220 --> 01:01:24,806 "I don't want everyone," essentially, "wearing our clothes." 1120 01:01:24,889 --> 01:01:27,558 He talked about going after the cool kids. 1121 01:01:27,642 --> 01:01:31,771 He talked about, and again, this word, the all-American, um, cool kid. 1122 01:01:31,854 --> 01:01:35,483 He sort of fetishized the all-American boy. 1123 01:01:35,983 --> 01:01:38,736 I mean, he's not the only person in fashion 1124 01:01:38,820 --> 01:01:41,698 who believed these things, 1125 01:01:41,781 --> 01:01:45,952 but he was the only person, seemingly, who would say that out loud. 1126 01:01:46,035 --> 01:01:49,455 Two days later, when I left Ohio, I got an email 1127 01:01:49,539 --> 01:01:53,209 that they were pulling their participation from the story. 1128 01:01:53,292 --> 01:01:56,587 Which meant, for me, the story was dead for The New York Times Magazine. 1129 01:01:56,671 --> 01:01:58,673 And I wrote the piece for Salon. 1130 01:01:59,757 --> 01:02:03,010 You know, the piece, when it came out, got a little bit of attention 1131 01:02:03,094 --> 01:02:08,224 as a profile of this quirky, highly successful fashion CEO. 1132 01:02:08,307 --> 01:02:10,101 So, in 2006, 1133 01:02:10,184 --> 01:02:13,438 to openly say that "We're an exclusionary brand" 1134 01:02:13,521 --> 01:02:17,483 apparently was not out of the realm of things that people would say. 1135 01:02:17,567 --> 01:02:20,027 What makes Abercrombie unique for me 1136 01:02:20,111 --> 01:02:22,488 is that they were unapologetic about it. 1137 01:02:22,572 --> 01:02:24,198 They really went out there. 1138 01:02:24,282 --> 01:02:25,825 They hired certain people. 1139 01:02:25,908 --> 01:02:29,412 They wanted a certain look. The ads looked a certain way. 1140 01:02:29,495 --> 01:02:31,080 And there wasn't this idea 1141 01:02:31,164 --> 01:02:34,625 that we need to come to the table around diversity and inclusion 1142 01:02:34,709 --> 01:02:37,712 and make sure that everyone feels represented. 1143 01:02:37,795 --> 01:02:39,881 They doubled down on being exclusionary. 1144 01:02:39,964 --> 01:02:43,092 They doubled down on saying, "This is a lifestyle that we're selling." 1145 01:02:43,176 --> 01:02:48,014 "We want our store representatives to look like the models in our ads." 1146 01:02:48,097 --> 01:02:51,517 "We want this lifestyle to be associated with us." 1147 01:02:51,601 --> 01:02:56,355 "We're not dissociating from being discriminating in our taste, 1148 01:02:56,439 --> 01:02:57,356 in our aesthetics." 1149 01:03:01,778 --> 01:03:04,697 One of the reasons that I didn't wear Abercrombie, 1150 01:03:04,781 --> 01:03:07,200 besides it being incredibly expensive, 1151 01:03:07,283 --> 01:03:09,076 was because I-- I literally couldn't. 1152 01:03:09,160 --> 01:03:10,995 I was the fat, gay, poor kid. 1153 01:03:11,078 --> 01:03:13,539 Pretty much, like, the bullying trifecta. 1154 01:03:13,623 --> 01:03:17,585 So one night I was up late, and I was just scrolling the Internet. 1155 01:03:17,668 --> 01:03:19,629 The Internet wasn't as impressive back then. 1156 01:03:19,712 --> 01:03:22,381 It was mostly news. And I came across this article. 1157 01:03:22,465 --> 01:03:24,842 It was about Mike Jeffries. I had never heard of him. 1158 01:03:24,926 --> 01:03:26,886 And I read this quote. It says, 1159 01:03:26,969 --> 01:03:31,974 "In every school, there are the cool kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids." 1160 01:03:32,058 --> 01:03:34,936 "Candidly, we go after the cool kids." 1161 01:03:35,019 --> 01:03:38,981 "We go after the attractive, all-American kid with a lot of friends." 1162 01:03:39,065 --> 01:03:40,483 "Are we exclusionary?" 1163 01:03:41,192 --> 01:03:42,485 "Absolutely." 1164 01:03:42,568 --> 01:03:45,530 I found out that it was actually seven years old. 1165 01:03:45,613 --> 01:03:48,157 That this man had said this seven years ago, 1166 01:03:48,241 --> 01:03:49,742 and no one did anything about it. 1167 01:03:50,576 --> 01:03:53,996 Someone who had so much power. Right? Because that's the thing. 1168 01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:56,666 He wasn't just the CEO of a clothing company. 1169 01:03:57,166 --> 01:03:58,668 He was a creator of cool. 1170 01:04:00,586 --> 01:04:04,215 And so I start this petition asking Abercrombie & Fitch to apologize 1171 01:04:04,298 --> 01:04:06,801 and to start making plus sizes. 1172 01:04:07,677 --> 01:04:10,680 And eventually, I create a press list, 200 names on it, 1173 01:04:10,763 --> 01:04:13,850 and I send this press release out to hundreds of people. 1174 01:04:14,350 --> 01:04:15,434 And I go to sleep. 1175 01:04:16,185 --> 01:04:18,145 An interview from, get this, 2006 1176 01:04:18,229 --> 01:04:21,983 with Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries has gone viral. 1177 01:04:22,483 --> 01:04:25,653 [reporter 1] If you're looking for a women's extra-large blouse, 1178 01:04:25,736 --> 01:04:26,612 you're out of luck. 1179 01:04:26,696 --> 01:04:29,949 The trendy retailer CEO doesn't want your business. 1180 01:04:30,032 --> 01:04:31,367 [reporter 2] He's crossing a line. 1181 01:04:31,450 --> 01:04:33,661 He's crossed the line, like, a billion times. 1182 01:04:33,744 --> 01:04:35,454 Stop shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch. 1183 01:04:35,538 --> 01:04:37,498 They actually said, "Fat chicks." 1184 01:04:38,374 --> 01:04:41,377 [Tkacik] It shows up on Twitter, and suddenly it goes viral, 1185 01:04:41,460 --> 01:04:45,715 and there's this huge campaign to oust Mike Jeffries. 1186 01:04:46,340 --> 01:04:48,175 Bitch! Your ass would do some good 1187 01:04:48,259 --> 01:04:50,803 if Kim Kardashian could squeeze her big butt into your clothes. 1188 01:04:50,887 --> 01:04:53,973 This guy is not attractive. He's an old hag. 1189 01:04:54,056 --> 01:04:56,475 Abercrombie & Fitch is one of the most racist places 1190 01:04:56,559 --> 01:04:57,602 I've ever been to. 1191 01:04:57,685 --> 01:04:59,478 They suck inside and out. 1192 01:04:59,562 --> 01:05:01,647 And their clothes are overpriced. 1193 01:05:01,731 --> 01:05:04,817 Regardless of whether your T-shirts fit these tits, 1194 01:05:05,610 --> 01:05:07,194 I'm not gonna shop in your store. 1195 01:05:07,278 --> 01:05:09,697 [reporter 3] He says that if companies try to target all sizes, 1196 01:05:09,780 --> 01:05:10,740 they end up in trouble, 1197 01:05:10,823 --> 01:05:13,159 and if you don't alienate anyone, you don't excite anyone. 1198 01:05:13,659 --> 01:05:16,037 -Let's take a look at him again. -[both laughing] 1199 01:05:17,455 --> 01:05:21,709 [girl] If you're judging someone on how cool they are just by looking at them, 1200 01:05:21,792 --> 01:05:24,003 and if you're hiring only good-looking people, 1201 01:05:24,086 --> 01:05:25,630 how about hiring good workers? 1202 01:05:26,255 --> 01:05:29,133 [Denizet-Lewis] I interviewed a girl who had led one of the boycotts, 1203 01:05:29,216 --> 01:05:33,304 and she said, "Abercrombie has the biggest impact on people my age." 1204 01:05:33,387 --> 01:05:36,807 Girls think that they need to be incredibly thin. 1205 01:05:36,891 --> 01:05:40,770 Boys think they need to be this-- this sort of jacked image 1206 01:05:40,853 --> 01:05:44,273 that they see when they walk in the stores and on their advertisements. 1207 01:05:44,357 --> 01:05:47,610 She said to me that there was no brand for her and her friends 1208 01:05:47,693 --> 01:05:49,195 that was more influential. 1209 01:05:49,278 --> 01:05:51,489 In high school, I suffered with anorexia, 1210 01:05:51,572 --> 01:05:54,909 and so I knew just how harmful that words like that 1211 01:05:54,992 --> 01:05:57,828 and rhetoric like that could be on the psyche of young people. 1212 01:05:57,912 --> 01:06:00,665 And that's who they were talking to, right? 1213 01:06:00,748 --> 01:06:02,750 That's who their consumers were. 1214 01:06:02,833 --> 01:06:06,045 They were telling young people that if they didn't look a certain way, 1215 01:06:06,128 --> 01:06:08,172 if they weren't a certain type of person, 1216 01:06:08,255 --> 01:06:10,466 that they didn't belong in their clothing. 1217 01:06:10,549 --> 01:06:13,511 This was weeks and weeks and weeks 1218 01:06:13,594 --> 01:06:15,972 that people were talking about this, covering this. 1219 01:06:16,055 --> 01:06:18,474 That's when we get the call from Abercrombie & Fitch 1220 01:06:18,557 --> 01:06:21,602 saying, like, "Hey, do you wanna come to Ohio 1221 01:06:21,686 --> 01:06:23,771 and, you know, help us out?" 1222 01:06:23,854 --> 01:06:25,648 "Help us see if we can work past this." 1223 01:06:25,731 --> 01:06:28,234 "See if we can come to some kind of agreement." 1224 01:06:28,317 --> 01:06:32,488 It's myself, the CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association, 1225 01:06:32,571 --> 01:06:34,323 a campaigner from Change.org, 1226 01:06:34,407 --> 01:06:37,535 and two other sort of eating disorders professionals. 1227 01:06:37,618 --> 01:06:42,415 And I went on to talk to them about not just size-based discrimination, 1228 01:06:42,498 --> 01:06:43,708 why discrimination is bad. 1229 01:06:43,791 --> 01:06:48,170 I talked to them about why it was actually just a stupid business decision. 1230 01:06:48,254 --> 01:06:52,842 When 60% of your consumer base is wearing these plus sizes, 1231 01:06:52,925 --> 01:06:54,510 why aren't you embracing them? 1232 01:06:55,011 --> 01:06:56,595 [O'Keefe] And then the team comes in, 1233 01:06:56,679 --> 01:07:00,725 and they're smiling, and they're bubbly, and they're white, 1234 01:07:00,808 --> 01:07:02,268 except for one person, 1235 01:07:02,351 --> 01:07:04,937 the Chief Diversity Officer. 1236 01:07:05,021 --> 01:07:06,564 Of course, he was a Black man. 1237 01:07:06,647 --> 01:07:08,733 [producer] "We go after the cool kids." 1238 01:07:09,316 --> 01:07:11,777 What did you think when Mike said that? 1239 01:07:12,486 --> 01:07:13,863 Um… 1240 01:07:13,946 --> 01:07:15,865 I have to respectfully decline on that. 1241 01:07:15,948 --> 01:07:20,995 You-- you would not be wrong about how you think I felt about that. 1242 01:07:21,078 --> 01:07:22,038 I mean… 1243 01:07:22,121 --> 01:07:25,166 So we're sitting at this board table, this long boardroom table, 1244 01:07:25,249 --> 01:07:29,211 and I say, "Wait a minute. Where's Mike? Where's Mike Jeffries?" 1245 01:07:29,295 --> 01:07:32,006 Mike Jeffries did not show up to the meeting. 1246 01:07:32,798 --> 01:07:37,595 And so I start taking out stacks of our 2,000 pages of petitions. 1247 01:07:37,678 --> 01:07:39,847 He had a box of stuff. Like, what's the box for? 1248 01:07:40,347 --> 01:07:44,852 And I plop them down in front of each executive dramatically, 1249 01:07:44,935 --> 01:07:45,853 really dramatically. 1250 01:07:45,936 --> 01:07:46,937 And I said… 1251 01:07:48,230 --> 01:07:51,150 "Each one of these piles of petitions 1252 01:07:51,233 --> 01:07:53,611 represents thousands of people 1253 01:07:53,694 --> 01:07:56,489 who are against what you are doing as a brand." 1254 01:07:56,572 --> 01:07:59,408 Their Chief Diversity Officer looked pretty offended. 1255 01:07:59,492 --> 01:08:00,951 He pulled out this little book. 1256 01:08:01,035 --> 01:08:05,831 He tried to explain to me how, actually, they were an incredibly diverse company, 1257 01:08:05,915 --> 01:08:08,959 and all of the great things that they had done for diversity 1258 01:08:09,043 --> 01:08:11,045 in their stores since he had come on. 1259 01:08:11,128 --> 01:08:12,463 And so he hands me this book, 1260 01:08:12,546 --> 01:08:15,382 and I sort of look at it, and I throw it back at him. 1261 01:08:15,466 --> 01:08:17,426 "So this means nothing. Look in this room." 1262 01:08:17,510 --> 01:08:19,303 "You're the only person of color here." 1263 01:08:19,386 --> 01:08:23,474 The higher up you go, the older it gets and the whiter it gets. 1264 01:08:23,557 --> 01:08:25,935 These people were there very early on. 1265 01:08:26,018 --> 01:08:29,563 They're telling you who looks Abercrombie. 1266 01:08:31,190 --> 01:08:34,276 [Givhan] Yeah, you've got the numbers at the store level, 1267 01:08:34,360 --> 01:08:37,571 but what about at the vice president level, 1268 01:08:37,655 --> 01:08:41,951 and what about the people who sit on your board of directors? 1269 01:08:42,034 --> 01:08:44,787 That becomes a question of the system, 1270 01:08:44,870 --> 01:08:48,165 and that becomes one that's much more challenging. 1271 01:08:48,249 --> 01:08:50,668 It's not something that can be fixed 1272 01:08:50,751 --> 01:08:54,463 with a hiring binge, you know, over the course of a year. 1273 01:08:54,547 --> 01:08:57,007 Upper management stayed white. 1274 01:08:57,091 --> 01:09:00,177 Most of the concerns in the decree were from the store side. 1275 01:09:00,261 --> 01:09:03,514 [Corley] I mean, again, they were 90% of your employee population. 1276 01:09:03,597 --> 01:09:05,724 So that was largely what we focused on. 1277 01:09:06,684 --> 01:09:12,148 You could call it a-- a glass ceiling for all people of color. 1278 01:09:12,231 --> 01:09:16,402 You go to the office, you see the new crop of regional managers, 1279 01:09:16,485 --> 01:09:18,696 was like, "Anybody? Anybody?" 1280 01:09:18,779 --> 01:09:19,780 "Okay, no." 1281 01:09:20,364 --> 01:09:24,118 I would be doing all the managers of color that I worked with over the years 1282 01:09:24,201 --> 01:09:27,121 that I truly appreciated a disservice 1283 01:09:27,204 --> 01:09:28,956 if I didn't at least say that 1284 01:09:29,832 --> 01:09:32,334 it wasn't not racist. 1285 01:09:33,669 --> 01:09:35,379 [producer laughs] "It wasn't not racist"! 1286 01:09:35,462 --> 01:09:36,338 [both laugh] 1287 01:09:36,422 --> 01:09:41,719 I think the real evidence of the leadership commitment came to light 1288 01:09:41,802 --> 01:09:43,387 when the consent decree ended. 1289 01:09:43,470 --> 01:09:47,766 They definitely improved a great deal on the surface. 1290 01:09:47,850 --> 01:09:51,604 But they didn't get anywhere close to what they sort of promised they would, 1291 01:09:51,687 --> 01:09:54,982 and none of this was binding, and that's the-- that's the big problem. 1292 01:10:07,745 --> 01:10:09,413 [Spencer] When the consent decree ended, 1293 01:10:09,496 --> 01:10:12,958 you started to see what you call "the fatigue." 1294 01:10:13,042 --> 01:10:15,127 Right? People were like… [sighs] 1295 01:10:15,628 --> 01:10:17,546 Then you start experiencing the resistance. 1296 01:10:17,630 --> 01:10:19,131 "Do we really have to do this?" 1297 01:10:19,215 --> 01:10:22,176 "Do we really need to allocate this much money to that?" Right? 1298 01:10:22,259 --> 01:10:23,219 And so… 1299 01:10:24,511 --> 01:10:26,013 were we really committed? 1300 01:10:26,680 --> 01:10:27,640 Or not? 1301 01:10:27,723 --> 01:10:29,850 I've been in Todd's seat. 1302 01:10:29,934 --> 01:10:31,977 That is an incredibly tough place to be 1303 01:10:32,061 --> 01:10:35,439 that we put marginalized people in all the time. 1304 01:10:35,522 --> 01:10:38,234 And we say, "Okay, fix all the problems." 1305 01:10:38,317 --> 01:10:42,780 He was set up to fail, and I think that's why he ultimately left. 1306 01:10:43,739 --> 01:10:47,576 Well, I've always been cautious about how I talk about my experience 1307 01:10:47,660 --> 01:10:48,911 'cause when I left, 1308 01:10:48,994 --> 01:10:52,665 I mean, uh, the place doesn't look like it did when I inherited it. 1309 01:10:52,748 --> 01:10:54,041 And if nothing else, 1310 01:10:54,792 --> 01:10:56,252 that, to me, is success. 1311 01:11:01,048 --> 01:11:02,049 Okay. 1312 01:11:07,846 --> 01:11:09,390 I'm Samantha Elauf. 1313 01:11:10,057 --> 01:11:12,476 I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1314 01:11:12,977 --> 01:11:16,021 So I was applying for Abercrombie & Fitch. 1315 01:11:16,105 --> 01:11:18,899 There was one question that they asked, which is funny now, 1316 01:11:18,983 --> 01:11:20,985 but as a minority, it stood out to me, 1317 01:11:21,068 --> 01:11:23,737 and it was, "What does diversity mean to you?" 1318 01:11:24,321 --> 01:11:27,157 So I was like, "Okay, I'll fit in perfect." 1319 01:11:27,241 --> 01:11:29,451 At the interview, I was also wearing jeans. 1320 01:11:29,535 --> 01:11:31,287 I think I was wearing a white basic, 1321 01:11:31,370 --> 01:11:34,373 and I was wearing a black scarf, traditionally worn. 1322 01:11:35,040 --> 01:11:37,209 After the interview, she told me she'd let me know 1323 01:11:37,293 --> 01:11:38,627 when to come in for orientation. 1324 01:11:39,586 --> 01:11:42,131 And I remember my friend messaging me and being like, 1325 01:11:42,214 --> 01:11:44,842 "Did my manager call you yet? When's your orientation?" 1326 01:11:44,925 --> 01:11:48,345 I was like, "She hasn't called me yet," and she's like, "I will ask her." 1327 01:11:49,305 --> 01:11:52,683 Whenever she asked the manager, the manager was acting very strange. 1328 01:11:53,559 --> 01:11:56,312 After she interviewed me, she called the district manager 1329 01:11:56,395 --> 01:11:58,355 because I was wearing a black headscarf. 1330 01:11:58,856 --> 01:12:01,567 At the time, they had a no-black policy. 1331 01:12:02,234 --> 01:12:05,779 He told her, "It doesn't matter what color she wore. She can't work here." 1332 01:12:07,781 --> 01:12:08,949 I didn't know what to think. 1333 01:12:09,033 --> 01:12:11,452 That was the first time anything had happened to me like that. 1334 01:12:11,535 --> 01:12:13,871 Soon after, I was at my mom's friend's house, 1335 01:12:13,954 --> 01:12:16,206 and I was telling her what happened, 1336 01:12:16,290 --> 01:12:20,711 and she communicated with me that I should get in touch with CAIR, 1337 01:12:20,794 --> 01:12:24,006 Council of American-Islamic Relations. 1338 01:12:24,590 --> 01:12:28,510 After getting into contact with them, they made my story public. 1339 01:12:30,179 --> 01:12:33,349 They decided to file my case with the EOC 1340 01:12:33,432 --> 01:12:35,976 and see if they would take it on as a lawsuit. 1341 01:12:36,810 --> 01:12:40,314 And that's when it got real, honestly. 1342 01:12:42,524 --> 01:12:43,942 My picture was everywhere, 1343 01:12:44,026 --> 01:12:46,278 and people were, like, sending me messages. 1344 01:12:46,779 --> 01:12:49,365 People were tweeting the craziest things. 1345 01:12:50,407 --> 01:12:53,202 There was a point where I stopped reading any comments. 1346 01:12:53,702 --> 01:12:58,457 For every positive, encouraging words, I was getting so much hate. 1347 01:13:00,292 --> 01:13:02,294 I did get a couple death threats. 1348 01:13:03,587 --> 01:13:06,256 It was more, like, hate towards my religion 1349 01:13:06,924 --> 01:13:09,676 and my beliefs to choose to cover. 1350 01:13:10,177 --> 01:13:13,305 But at the same time, I even had Muslims, like, say, 1351 01:13:14,014 --> 01:13:16,308 "Why would you wanna work for Abercrombie?" 1352 01:13:18,268 --> 01:13:21,146 I also had people say, "Go back to your country," 1353 01:13:21,230 --> 01:13:24,441 which is funny because I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1354 01:13:24,525 --> 01:13:25,776 Where am I supposed to go? 1355 01:13:27,861 --> 01:13:31,990 [Maheshwari] Abercrombie really dug its heels in on this topic 1356 01:13:32,074 --> 01:13:33,784 and decided that they were right. 1357 01:13:33,867 --> 01:13:37,413 The Abercrombie lawyers tried to compare this to, you know, 1358 01:13:37,496 --> 01:13:38,747 wearing a baseball hat 1359 01:13:38,831 --> 01:13:42,334 and saying, "Well, we wouldn't let an employee wear a baseball cap." 1360 01:13:42,418 --> 01:13:44,545 But obviously, there's a really big difference 1361 01:13:44,628 --> 01:13:47,339 between a hijab and a baseball cap. 1362 01:13:47,423 --> 01:13:51,260 I remember going to my phone, and it was, like, blowing up. 1363 01:13:52,761 --> 01:13:56,140 The Supreme Court came out with a list of the 100 cases they would hear, 1364 01:13:56,223 --> 01:13:57,891 and mine was one of them. 1365 01:13:57,975 --> 01:13:59,685 [Berfield] That was pretty significant. 1366 01:13:59,768 --> 01:14:03,856 First, that a company would allow a case to go to the Supreme Court. 1367 01:14:03,939 --> 01:14:05,232 Very unusual. 1368 01:14:05,315 --> 01:14:08,110 Most companies would want to settle 1369 01:14:08,193 --> 01:14:12,322 because they would be scared about the publicity, winning or losing. 1370 01:14:12,406 --> 01:14:16,201 Their argument was that if they hired me, I would hurt their brand, 1371 01:14:16,285 --> 01:14:18,370 which in return would hurt their sales. 1372 01:14:18,454 --> 01:14:21,039 That was their argument, that I would hurt their numbers 1373 01:14:21,123 --> 01:14:22,958 because I didn't fit their look policy. 1374 01:14:24,126 --> 01:14:25,294 [reporter 4] The Supreme Court 1375 01:14:25,377 --> 01:14:28,172 rejected that argument by an eight to one vote. 1376 01:14:29,047 --> 01:14:31,633 [reporter 5] The justices say Abercrombie & Fitch's actions 1377 01:14:31,717 --> 01:14:34,761 violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 1378 01:14:36,430 --> 01:14:38,932 [Sagafi] If Justice Scalia is moved to say you're discriminating, 1379 01:14:39,016 --> 01:14:40,434 you're really doing something wrong. 1380 01:14:41,310 --> 01:14:44,855 I had eight that voted in my favor, and I had one who didn't, 1381 01:14:44,938 --> 01:14:49,485 and the one judge who did not vote in my favor was African American. 1382 01:14:49,568 --> 01:14:51,904 So, not saying 'cause you're African American, 1383 01:14:51,987 --> 01:14:55,574 you have to be on my side, because we're different, 1384 01:14:55,657 --> 01:14:57,284 but I was just surprised. 1385 01:14:58,911 --> 01:15:02,164 To this day, when people are like, "I saw you in my history book," 1386 01:15:02,247 --> 01:15:04,041 or, "Oh, I was reading about you." 1387 01:15:04,124 --> 01:15:06,960 "Oh, I'm studying law. We talked about you," 1388 01:15:07,044 --> 01:15:10,214 I don't think I realized, like, what all I did. 1389 01:15:13,467 --> 01:15:16,220 [O'Keefe] Abercrombie & Fitch went all the way to the Supreme Court. 1390 01:15:16,303 --> 01:15:19,014 Discrimination was not just a blip. 1391 01:15:19,097 --> 01:15:21,058 It was not just one quote from seven years. 1392 01:15:21,141 --> 01:15:23,435 It was their brand. It was their identity. 1393 01:15:23,519 --> 01:15:27,189 They rooted themselves in discrimination at every single level. 1394 01:15:28,065 --> 01:15:30,859 Abercrombie, at that point, was almost synonymous with scandal. 1395 01:15:30,943 --> 01:15:32,694 It wasn't really about the clothing 1396 01:15:32,778 --> 01:15:35,864 or that they had too much logo, and logo was going out of style. 1397 01:15:35,948 --> 01:15:38,992 It was really like, "Oh, this brand is becoming problematic," 1398 01:15:39,076 --> 01:15:41,620 because, as analysts would say, 1399 01:15:41,703 --> 01:15:45,415 all of this is distracting from the business of selling clothes. 1400 01:15:47,834 --> 01:15:51,964 The second quarter proved to be more difficult than expected. 1401 01:15:52,047 --> 01:15:54,967 We are not satisfied with our results 1402 01:15:55,050 --> 01:16:00,556 and are working hard to improve the trend for the third quarter and beyond. 1403 01:16:03,559 --> 01:16:07,854 [Berfield] Abercrombie was becoming irrelevant under Mike Jeffries. 1404 01:16:08,355 --> 01:16:11,275 But Mike Jeffries is making a lot of money. 1405 01:16:12,234 --> 01:16:15,237 Mike's been hounded by these shareholder lawsuits saying, 1406 01:16:15,320 --> 01:16:18,991 "Why are you paying yourself $40 million a year 1407 01:16:19,074 --> 01:16:23,287 when your stock is, you know, in the, like, bottom 10%?" 1408 01:16:23,370 --> 01:16:25,622 I actually found a manual 1409 01:16:25,706 --> 01:16:29,668 for how to treat Mike Jeffries on the company airplane. 1410 01:16:29,751 --> 01:16:31,295 [female voice] Aircraft standards. 1411 01:16:32,296 --> 01:16:37,342 A 47-page manual for the Abercrombie & Fitch executive jet. 1412 01:16:37,426 --> 01:16:42,139 It's impossible to overstate how particular 1413 01:16:42,222 --> 01:16:43,807 the instructions were. 1414 01:16:43,890 --> 01:16:46,643 [female voice] If the passengers are eating cold food, 1415 01:16:46,727 --> 01:16:49,605 crew members are not to eat hot meals. 1416 01:16:49,688 --> 01:16:50,981 The kind of instructions 1417 01:16:51,064 --> 01:16:54,234 that you never really see revealed to the public. 1418 01:16:54,860 --> 01:16:57,696 [female voice] When Michael or a guest make a request, 1419 01:16:57,779 --> 01:16:59,323 respond by saying, 1420 01:17:00,032 --> 01:17:00,949 "No problem." 1421 01:17:01,533 --> 01:17:06,580 This should be used in place of phrases like, "Sure," or, "Just a minute." 1422 01:17:08,081 --> 01:17:11,668 The shifts he made for the company were great 1423 01:17:11,752 --> 01:17:14,379 in terms of a small period of time. 1424 01:17:14,463 --> 01:17:16,506 I don't think any of that was sustainable. 1425 01:17:16,590 --> 01:17:19,468 It didn't feel like there was a long-term strategy there. 1426 01:17:19,551 --> 01:17:23,805 It felt like it was, "Let's grow it as big as it can possibly get 1427 01:17:23,889 --> 01:17:25,057 and see what happens." 1428 01:17:25,140 --> 01:17:28,435 You don't want your brand to run white-hot, 1429 01:17:28,518 --> 01:17:32,147 because white-hot brands always burn out. 1430 01:17:33,815 --> 01:17:36,193 [reporter 8] Abercrombie, it's in dire straits. 1431 01:17:36,693 --> 01:17:39,237 It's just that CEO Mike Jeffries doesn't seem to know it. 1432 01:17:40,364 --> 01:17:43,867 [Rupp] In the 2000s, business started to really change for Abercrombie, 1433 01:17:44,701 --> 01:17:46,620 and I think the customer began to change. 1434 01:17:48,246 --> 01:17:51,750 [Maheshwari] It was losing its luster with teens. 1435 01:17:55,879 --> 01:17:57,255 [Sanchez] It wasn't cool. 1436 01:17:57,339 --> 01:18:01,968 You were wearing Abercrombie & Fitch, it was like a construction outfit. 1437 01:18:02,052 --> 01:18:05,013 When you're in construction, you put on your boots to go to work, 1438 01:18:05,097 --> 01:18:08,600 and you get home, those boots and all that stuff comes out. 1439 01:18:08,684 --> 01:18:09,810 You go to the shower. 1440 01:18:09,893 --> 01:18:13,230 You're wearin' somethin' else to do whatever you're gonna do after that. 1441 01:18:13,313 --> 01:18:15,774 That was our Abercrombie & Fitch clothing. 1442 01:18:15,857 --> 01:18:19,319 At some point, those kids that learned it wasn't cool to be bullied grew up 1443 01:18:19,403 --> 01:18:22,864 and decided they didn't wanna spend money at a place that made them feel bad. 1444 01:18:22,948 --> 01:18:25,409 And so Abercrombie & Fitch, like… 1445 01:18:26,118 --> 01:18:28,036 Some of that aura went away 1446 01:18:28,120 --> 01:18:33,875 precisely because exclusion was the root of their success. 1447 01:18:34,751 --> 01:18:39,423 And exclusion itself stopped being quite so cool. 1448 01:18:40,757 --> 01:18:42,801 We've got breaking news on the retail front. 1449 01:18:42,884 --> 01:18:46,388 Abercrombie & Fitch, the CEO is stepping down. 1450 01:18:48,974 --> 01:18:54,438 He literally was on the phone with executives on Sunday, December 7th, 1451 01:18:55,147 --> 01:18:57,983 and Monday, December 8th, did not show up for work. 1452 01:18:58,066 --> 01:18:59,234 Never showed up again, 1453 01:18:59,317 --> 01:19:02,362 and many people have never seen him since then. 1454 01:19:04,865 --> 01:19:08,452 [Spencer] I think people thought that Mike was a permanent fixture, 1455 01:19:08,535 --> 01:19:10,454 and you sit there and you think, 1456 01:19:10,537 --> 01:19:14,833 "How long will there be tolerance for this sort of behavior, 1457 01:19:14,916 --> 01:19:17,586 this type of comment, this type of leadership?" 1458 01:19:17,669 --> 01:19:19,588 So you think he would never go away. 1459 01:19:19,671 --> 01:19:22,340 So I remember thinking when he finally-- 1460 01:19:22,424 --> 01:19:24,885 [laughs] I was like, "Wow!" 1461 01:19:24,968 --> 01:19:27,095 Like, "They finally got rid of him." 1462 01:19:27,596 --> 01:19:30,891 At some point, you know, all things come to an end. 1463 01:19:38,273 --> 01:19:41,401 [Tkacik] Les Wexner has been embroiled in scandals. 1464 01:19:41,485 --> 01:19:43,653 Just heading to a meeting. Thank you. 1465 01:19:44,196 --> 01:19:47,991 [reporter 6] Les Wexner announced he was stepping down as CEO of L Brands. 1466 01:19:49,534 --> 01:19:53,705 [reporter 7] He remains under scrutiny for his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein, 1467 01:19:53,789 --> 01:19:57,167 the convicted sex offender and disgraced financier. 1468 01:19:57,667 --> 01:20:00,796 [Tkacik] He not only signed over his entire fortune to Jeffrey Epstein, 1469 01:20:00,879 --> 01:20:04,841 he let Jeffrey represent himself as a Victoria's Secret model scout. 1470 01:20:06,218 --> 01:20:07,969 One of the biggest reasons 1471 01:20:08,053 --> 01:20:11,765 Jeffrey Epstein was able to surround himself constantly 1472 01:20:11,848 --> 01:20:14,142 with really hot young women, 1473 01:20:14,226 --> 01:20:17,604 they thought that he could, you know, make or break them. 1474 01:20:17,687 --> 01:20:20,690 Bombshell exposé in The New York Times. 1475 01:20:20,774 --> 01:20:24,402 Bruce Weber guilty of years of sexual misconduct and abuse. 1476 01:20:25,487 --> 01:20:28,907 [Tkacik] Bruce Weber, of course, would be sued by legions of models. 1477 01:20:29,658 --> 01:20:33,495 Bruce told me I was tense and did some breathing exercises with me. 1478 01:20:33,995 --> 01:20:35,705 At the time, I froze. 1479 01:20:35,789 --> 01:20:37,624 I did not know how to respond. 1480 01:20:37,707 --> 01:20:41,253 The entire experience was terrifying and humiliating. 1481 01:21:06,903 --> 01:21:12,826 Changes tend to happen when, you know, those who raise concerns can point out 1482 01:21:12,909 --> 01:21:16,413 all the ways in which a company is leaving money on a table 1483 01:21:16,496 --> 01:21:18,582 by its current actions. 1484 01:21:18,665 --> 01:21:20,166 And then changes happen. 1485 01:21:20,834 --> 01:21:24,337 Repositioning a brand and moving a brand forward is not always easy. 1486 01:21:24,421 --> 01:21:27,424 So, candidly, we've had a few starts and stops on our journey. 1487 01:21:27,507 --> 01:21:30,218 We are no longer the company that we used to be. 1488 01:21:30,302 --> 01:21:32,345 That we could wipe clean our social channels, 1489 01:21:32,429 --> 01:21:34,389 wipe clean the history. 1490 01:21:52,365 --> 01:21:54,743 [Lindsey] Having a broad range of people represented 1491 01:21:54,826 --> 01:21:58,997 and feel included in your brand is smart business. 1492 01:21:59,080 --> 01:22:01,708 There is a smart business of being discriminatory 1493 01:22:01,791 --> 01:22:04,669 and being exclusionary, because there are always gonna be people 1494 01:22:04,753 --> 01:22:07,797 who want to see themselves as the cool kids. 1495 01:22:07,881 --> 01:22:10,508 But it's fascinating to see how many brands now 1496 01:22:10,592 --> 01:22:14,387 are doubling down on the cool kids being anybody and everybody. 1497 01:22:15,889 --> 01:22:19,976 And they've gone the other direction with respect to the diversity of models. 1498 01:22:20,060 --> 01:22:22,562 Abercrombie & Fitch has announced plans 1499 01:22:22,646 --> 01:22:26,316 to no longer hire employees based on attractiveness, 1500 01:22:26,399 --> 01:22:29,986 which should make the first new guy they hire feel great. 1501 01:22:30,070 --> 01:22:31,571 [audience laughter] 1502 01:22:31,655 --> 01:22:34,699 It's just a shame that we couldn't have gone to that sooner. 1503 01:22:37,118 --> 01:22:41,331 Abercrombie & Fitch is illustrative more so than it is exceptional. 1504 01:22:41,957 --> 01:22:45,961 [Rupp] They didn't invent evil. They didn't invent class. 1505 01:22:46,044 --> 01:22:48,129 They just packaged it. 1506 01:22:48,213 --> 01:22:52,384 If anything, it represents the worst parts of American history 1507 01:22:52,467 --> 01:22:56,096 in terms of the cost, the hiring practices, the images. 1508 01:22:56,179 --> 01:22:59,891 It's everything we want America not to be. 1509 01:23:00,684 --> 01:23:02,936 [Rupp] We all like to think we have grown beyond that, 1510 01:23:03,019 --> 01:23:04,896 that we're all a little bit better. 1511 01:23:06,439 --> 01:23:10,402 I don't know what it says about us that it was so popular for so long. 1512 01:23:10,485 --> 01:23:11,319 Probably 1513 01:23:12,487 --> 01:23:15,365 that we really wanted to be liked. [laughs] 1514 01:23:15,448 --> 01:23:20,787 We were kind of, you know, blinded by our own… light. 1515 01:23:20,870 --> 01:23:23,581 [laughs] You know, we were like, "We're so great. We're so successful." 1516 01:23:23,665 --> 01:23:26,334 But, like, social media wasn't a thing. 1517 01:23:26,418 --> 01:23:29,963 There were probably just as many people as there are now 1518 01:23:30,046 --> 01:23:32,674 who hated what we were doing, who were completely offended, 1519 01:23:32,757 --> 01:23:35,885 who didn't feel included, who didn't feel represented. 1520 01:23:35,969 --> 01:23:38,596 But they didn't have the platform to be able to voice it, 1521 01:23:38,680 --> 01:23:40,390 and now they do, so maybe… 1522 01:23:40,473 --> 01:23:43,476 Yeah, maybe it's not, like, this massive societal new awareness. 1523 01:23:43,560 --> 01:23:47,605 It's just now we're hearing everyone, and we have to pay attention. 1524 01:23:50,275 --> 01:23:55,238 [Yu] I think there's a limitation to where brands can really walk the walk. 1525 01:23:55,321 --> 01:23:58,575 When it really comes down to it, you're trying to sell something, right? 1526 01:23:58,658 --> 01:24:01,578 Can you really sell diversity inclusion 1527 01:24:01,661 --> 01:24:05,165 when really what you're trying to sell is a V-neck, you know? 1528 01:24:05,999 --> 01:24:08,710 [Ocampo] My hope is that companies realize that they play 1529 01:24:08,793 --> 01:24:12,922 a pivotal role in shaping culture, shaping conversations, 1530 01:24:13,006 --> 01:24:17,177 shaping which people in this society are valued. 1531 01:24:17,260 --> 01:24:20,680 The story of Abercrombie is essentially an incredible indictment 1532 01:24:20,764 --> 01:24:22,932 of where our culture was… 1533 01:24:24,517 --> 01:24:26,227 oh, just ten years ago. 1534 01:24:26,311 --> 01:24:31,900 It was a culture that, um, enthusiastically embraced 1535 01:24:31,983 --> 01:24:37,530 a nearly all sort of WASPy vision of the world. 1536 01:24:37,614 --> 01:24:43,953 It was a culture that defined beauty as thin and white and young, 1537 01:24:44,037 --> 01:24:50,335 and it was a culture that was very happy to exclude people. 1538 01:24:51,878 --> 01:24:53,755 [producer] And so have we solved that now? 1539 01:24:53,838 --> 01:24:55,173 [laughs] 1540 01:24:55,256 --> 01:24:56,341 No. 1541 01:24:57,133 --> 01:25:00,845 ♪ Can't you see our generation Goin' down the tubes? ♪ 1542 01:25:02,305 --> 01:25:06,684 ♪ The more we keep lookin' back We can only lose ♪ 1543 01:25:08,186 --> 01:25:10,271 ♪ Remember when we were Kids hangin' out? ♪ 1544 01:25:10,355 --> 01:25:13,066 ♪ Feelin' all right Thinkin' we're on top? ♪ 1545 01:25:13,149 --> 01:25:16,611 ♪ Well, now the whole damn generation's Goin' down the tubes ♪ 1546 01:25:18,947 --> 01:25:21,366 ♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ 1547 01:25:21,449 --> 01:25:24,285 ♪ I'm left wantin' more Than what we could do ♪ 1548 01:25:24,369 --> 01:25:26,788 ♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ 1549 01:25:26,871 --> 01:25:29,791 ♪ Yeah, that's right, I'm talking to you ♪ 1550 01:25:51,521 --> 01:25:53,857 ♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ 1551 01:25:53,940 --> 01:25:56,860 ♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ 1552 01:25:56,943 --> 01:25:59,487 ♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ 1553 01:25:59,571 --> 01:26:02,532 -♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ -♪ It's goin' down the tubes ♪ 1554 01:26:02,615 --> 01:26:05,285 -♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ -♪ It's goin' down the tubes ♪ 1555 01:26:05,368 --> 01:26:08,121 -♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ -♪ It's goin' down the tubes ♪ 1556 01:26:08,204 --> 01:26:10,832 -♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ -♪ It's goin' down the tubes ♪ 1557 01:26:10,915 --> 01:26:13,501 ♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ 1558 01:26:13,585 --> 01:26:16,004 ♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ 1559 01:26:16,087 --> 01:26:18,256 ♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪ 1560 01:26:18,882 --> 01:26:21,259 ♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪