WEBVTT FILE

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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[sighs]

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[crew member] 101. Take four.

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[producer] Thank you.

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[man 1] Recruiting is everything.

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My name is Jose Sanchez.

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Sorry, I'm stopping you
because I work for Abercrombie & Fitch.

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I'm a recruiter. I'm looking for people
to work part-time in a store.

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Nothing crazy. Five, ten, 15 hours a week.

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We hire good-looking people.

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<i>♪ Can we forget about the things I said</i>
<i>When I was drunk? ♪</i>

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<i>♪ I didn't mean to call you that… ♪</i>

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[woman 1] When I was in high school,

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Abercrombie & Fitch
was the hottest retailer.

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[woman 2] It was one of those stores

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that when you're walking around,
you do a walk-through.

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<i>♪ Please tell me why ♪</i>

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<i>♪ My car is in the front yard… ♪</i>

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It was such a pop culture phenomenon.

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[man 2] There was just
this huge explosion.

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If you weren't wearing Abercrombie,
you weren't cool.

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<i>♪ I came in through the window… ♪</i>

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[man 3]
I just remember the pressure to fit in,

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being like,
"I wish I had that Abercrombie thing."

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[woman 4] I don't feel this way now,

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but then it was very cool
to look like everyone else.

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[Sanchez] There was a guy,
blond hair, blue-eyed,

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just shredded
like he was carved out of granite.

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And he wore Abercrombie & Fitch.

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-What it was selling was aspirational.
-Aspirational.

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Aspirational.

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Aspirational.

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<i>♪ My car is in the front yard… ♪</i>

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This, like, perfect image
of an all-American youth.

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[woman 3] I would
walk past Abercrombie like,

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"What is so special about this store?"

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It is so thin and white.

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[woman 5] <i>Fraternity,</i>

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<i>boarding school,</i>

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<i>WASP,</i>

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<i>upper crust,</i>

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<i>preppy with money.</i>

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[man 4] When I wore
the Abercrombie clothes,

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I felt different,
and I thought things might <i>be </i>different.

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[man 5] There's a reason
why people liked that brand.

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It's because exclusion
is part of our society.

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I think the first time
I saw Abercrombie & Fitch,

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a girl was carrying a bag
with a half-naked, pretty hot white guy

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in black and white.

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And I thought, "What is that?"

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[man 6] Abercrombie sold a dream.

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It almost was like your fantasy,
like a young person's fantasy.

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They literally made so much money
marketing clothes

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but advertising them
with no clothes on, so…

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[camera shutter clicking]

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[chuckles] You got used to that.
The more you shoot with Abercrombie,

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the more you're, like,
comfortable with being half naked

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and the clothes you're modeling
not actually being on you.

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[woman 1] When you look back on it
as an adult, it can feel shocking.

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But as a teenager,
you just thought it was cool.

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I saved enough money to buy one top,

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and I wore it as often as I could
without looking weird.

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It said "Abercrombie & Fitch" on the arm.
So it would be like…

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"Look, I'm cool." [laughs]

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At least at my high school,

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there was girls
who would cut out the guys from the bags

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and hang up those pictures
in their locker.

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I liked the posters or the photographs,
and all my books were covered in them.

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The Abercrombie would go on the spine,

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and then the picture
would go on each side.

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[man 7] The clothes were nothing special,

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but it was the label on the clothes
and Abercrombie across your chest

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that was almost like
a badge of distinction.

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[man 4] I associated the brand
with, like, frat boys, rugby players.

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Like, the white guys that played
unconventional sports like lacrosse.

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It's not like other companies
where they have a celebrity,

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like, "I'm gonna be
just like Brad Pitt one day."

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Like, no, you're not.

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But you can be like
the Abercrombie guy one day.

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Very innocent, small town-type people.

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The people that bought the clothes
are the people in the campaign.

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-[interviewer] Where you from?
-PA, baby. Amish County, PA.

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-New York, New York.
-719.

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-Pittsburgh.
-Dallas, Texas.

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Connecticut.

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[man 4] I went to Stanford,
and my freshman year roommate,

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he had the catalogs
with all of the, like, shirtless,

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rugby-playing, rowing Abercrombie dudes,

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and on his dorm closet, he, like,
made a whole collage of these men.

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So I would say there was, like,

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50 little cutouts
of Abercrombie shirtless guys

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just posted on his-- on his dorm closet.

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So obviously it was then that I noticed
that it was, like, a super white thing.

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I grew up in Washington, DC,
and in seventh grade,

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I went to Sidwell Friends High School,

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the high school
where Malia and Sasha Obama went,

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Chelsea Clinton went,

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so this very elite private school
in Upper Northwest Washington, DC.

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I was all into hip-hop and R&B,

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so my designers at that time
were kind of FUBU, Mecca,

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and these urban wear designers

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that had really emerged
in the late '80s and early '90s.

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And I got to Sidwell,

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and I heard of this thing
called Abercrombie & Fitch.

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I didn't know
what was so special about this brand,

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but at Sidwell, it was the thing to have.

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I remember seeing kids who definitely had
more money than I did wearing the clothes

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and just wanting to be
a part of that look.

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<i>♪ Can't you see our generation</i>
<i>Goin' down the tubes… ♪</i>

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The super low-rise jeans,

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showing the midriff,
belly button area was definitely in.

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<i>♪ Remember when we were</i>
<i>Kids hangin' out… ♪</i>

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You know, even, I think,
celebrities were wearing it.

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<i>♪ Well, now the whole damn generation… ♪</i>

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[Ocampo] <i>Abercrombie & Fitch used people</i>

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<i>before they were</i>
<i>anything more than models.</i>

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<i>-♪ Say goodbye to your generation… ♪</i>
<i>-Taylor Swift.</i>

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<i>Jennifer Lawrence.</i>

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<i>Channing Tatum.</i>

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<i>-♪ Say goodbye to your generation… ♪</i>
<i>-Ashton Kutcher.</i>

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[Barrientos] <i>Heidi Klum.</i>

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[Ocampo] <i>January Jones.</i>

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I mean,
we were looking at full-on advertisements

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as telling us what was cool.

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Magazines were definitely a big thing
because social media just wasn't there.

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<i>♪ Oops, I did it again ♪</i>

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[Karo] MTV, the Video Music Awards,
and the <i>House of Style </i>television show

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gave flyover country access to the things
that they wouldn't see ordinarily.

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Please welcome 98 Degrees to <i>TRL.</i>

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[cheering]

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Trends that might have begun on the east
or west coast now are being shown on MTV

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and through their channels,

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and it made styles move across the country
much more quickly.

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The same happened in malls.

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<i>♪ I was lying on the grass</i>
<i>On Sunday morning of last week… ♪</i>

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That mall culture was everything.

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You went to shop with your family.

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You went to hang out with friends.

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We hung out at the mall,
like, every weekend.

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[Ocampo] My friends and I,
behind our parents' back,

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would sneak over to the mall and hang out.

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We would have our schoolbags,
dressed in our Catholic school uniform.

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[woman 4] The mall was the place
everyone went to pass time.

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So when I turned 16,
I knew that's where I wanted to work.

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<i>♪ I know it's up for me ♪</i>

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<i>♪ If you steal my sunshine ♪</i>

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<i>♪ Making sure I'm not in too deep ♪</i>

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<i>♪ If you steal my sunshine… ♪</i>

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Imagine, like, a search engine
that you could walk through.

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Or, you know,
an online catalog that's an actual place.

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[woman 5] <i>You had to, like,</i>
<i>go to the mall to know what to wear.</i>

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Aw, very cool.

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[Karo] As more malls opened
and people gravitated toward malls,

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not only were they social outlets,

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but they catered to all
the different interests all in one place.

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Specialty stores enabled you

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to be very specific
about what you went shopping for.

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You can go to Hot Topic
if you were kind of punkish.

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You could go to Pac Sun
if you wanted more of that surfer look.

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You could go to Abercrombie & Fitch
if you wanted that preppy look.

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There were lots of brands doing preppy,
but in terms of designers,

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it was undoubtedly
Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica.

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One of the earliest brands

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to really merge youth culture
and sex appeal

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was really Calvin Klein.

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What the hell is that?

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-A dress.
-[dad] Says who?

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Calvin Klein.

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It looks like underwear.

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What Abercrombie did
was create this middle ground

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between sex,
that Calvin Klein was selling,

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and all-American preppiness
that Ralph Lauren was selling.

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You want what you perceive to be
the cool guy wearing.

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<i>♪ That's okay</i>
<i>'Cause I've got no self-esteem… ♪</i>

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So it became that,

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"If only I had Tommy Hilfiger,
I'll be cool."

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Or the GUESS jeans.

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Oh my goodness.

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Some of that stuff was just…
You couldn't get it.

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Abercrombie & Fitch
was a little bit more affordable.

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[Givhan] Just aspirational enough,

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but not so expensive
that it was out of reach.

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The fundamental idea
is that fashion is selling us belonging,

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confidence, cool, sex appeal.

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You know, in many ways,

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the very last thing
that it's selling is actually garments.

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[producer] Do you remember the first time
you went to an Abercrombie store?

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Oh yeah! [laughs]

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Um, I remember, like, walking in

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and just being hit with the sense, like,

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"Oh my God, they've bottled this."

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"They have absolutely crystallized
everything that I hate about high school

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and put it in a store."

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[O'Keefe] First you get there, and you
have two hot guys flanking the outside.

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So if you make it past
those hot guys, right,

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without a little distraction
or a little bit of intimidation.

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When I started there, it was around the
holidays, so they'd also have a Santa hat.

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So, Santa hat, topless and jeans.

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[Karo] One of the things
that Abercrombie did quite brilliantly

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was put up brown shutters over the windows

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and a big image
in the front doorway at the entry.

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So you couldn't see what was in the store
unless you went into the store.

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No other mall retailer did that.

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I mean, they forced you
to come over the threshold.

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<i>♪ I'll be with you, girl ♪</i>

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<i>♪ Like bein' low</i>

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<i>♪ Hey, hey, hey, like bein' stoned… ♪</i>

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[Barrientos] It had a whole vibe to it.

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And you would know you were getting close
because you would hear music.

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[thumping techno music]

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[Ocampo] <i>Music full blast,</i>
<i>and parents hated it.</i>

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[woman 6] <i>Pulsating nightclub beats.</i>

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<i>Massive images</i>
<i>of, like, bare-chested guys.</i>

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[man 8] The whole store
was to be an experience,

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where people went in there and hung out.

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<i>♪ I'll be with you, girl ♪</i>

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<i>♪ Like bein' low… ♪</i>

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[Barrientos] It was considered,
like, all-American look,

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and I considered myself
an all-American girl.

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[laughs] And so I liked that look.

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<i>♪ Like bein' low ♪</i>

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<i>♪ Hey, hey, hey, like bein' ♪</i>

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<i>-♪ Stoned ♪</i>
-[spray hissing]

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[O'Keefe] It's a particular
type of cologne

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that only an Abercrombie store would have.

227
00:11:58.092 --> 00:12:02.263
You're hit with the smell. [laughs]
You're hit with the smell of Abercrombie.

228
00:12:02.346 --> 00:12:06.434
That sort of, like, musky, masculine scent
when you walk by.

229
00:12:07.143 --> 00:12:11.439
I actually would see employees walk around
and spray things with this scent.

230
00:12:11.939 --> 00:12:15.443
I get migraines easily,
so it was actually hard for me.

231
00:12:15.526 --> 00:12:17.486
I'd go in, come out
'cause I'd have a headache,

232
00:12:17.570 --> 00:12:19.405
but for teenagers, it was probably fine.

233
00:12:19.488 --> 00:12:22.241
I got a lot of it for free,
and it smelled--

234
00:12:22.324 --> 00:12:25.161
Their cologne always smelled really good.
Yeah.

235
00:12:25.244 --> 00:12:28.164
My mom was not a fan of the store,

236
00:12:28.247 --> 00:12:31.959
and I remember her asking me,
"I don't understand why you shop there."

237
00:12:32.042 --> 00:12:34.086
The staff was horrendous, to be honest.

238
00:12:34.170 --> 00:12:36.005
We at the company used to talk about it.

239
00:12:36.088 --> 00:12:38.924
-Their job was not to be attentive at all.
-[woman] Excuse me?

240
00:12:39.008 --> 00:12:42.094
[man 9] Actually, their job was to pretend
like you were annoying them.

241
00:12:44.221 --> 00:12:45.055
<i>Excuse me.</i>

242
00:12:46.223 --> 00:12:47.349
-Yeah?
-[laughter]

243
00:12:47.433 --> 00:12:50.060
Somebody at <i>MADtv</i>
must have worked at Abercrombie,

244
00:12:50.144 --> 00:12:51.854
or their brother must have worked there

245
00:12:51.937 --> 00:12:56.275
because they had
the culture of Abercrombie so pegged.

246
00:12:56.358 --> 00:12:59.904
You only got one dressing room.
There's a line. Could you open another?

247
00:12:59.987 --> 00:13:00.988
No.

248
00:13:01.071 --> 00:13:02.782
They weren't exaggerated.

249
00:13:02.865 --> 00:13:04.366
Do you have the key?

250
00:13:04.450 --> 00:13:05.576
Nah, brah.

251
00:13:08.204 --> 00:13:11.373
I think Dutch has it.
Hey, Dutch, you got the key?

252
00:13:11.457 --> 00:13:14.001
[Tkacik] They really do a good job
of capturing, like,

253
00:13:14.084 --> 00:13:16.378
"Where am I? Like, what is this place?"

254
00:13:16.462 --> 00:13:18.088
Hey, Storm, you got the key?

255
00:13:19.799 --> 00:13:22.802
Oh! Yeah, I do. My bad.

256
00:13:22.885 --> 00:13:24.595
[employees laughing]

257
00:13:25.137 --> 00:13:27.431
[woman 7] Every piece of Abercrombie

258
00:13:28.891 --> 00:13:31.143
was by design.

259
00:13:32.895 --> 00:13:34.104
By Mike's design.

260
00:13:37.775 --> 00:13:40.986
The stores, the product, the whole thing,

261
00:13:41.070 --> 00:13:42.863
he was-- he would sign off on.

262
00:13:52.373 --> 00:13:55.042
I was a merchant
reporting directly to Mike.

263
00:13:55.626 --> 00:13:58.087
Essentially, we were together nonstop.

264
00:13:58.838 --> 00:14:01.006
I think I was his second hire.

265
00:14:01.090 --> 00:14:03.968
He had a pure mission,

266
00:14:04.051 --> 00:14:06.804
and that was to build Abercrombie.

267
00:14:07.638 --> 00:14:10.599
[woman 8] Mike Jeffries was known
to be kind of quiet

268
00:14:10.683 --> 00:14:13.102
in the broadest public sphere, you know.

269
00:14:13.185 --> 00:14:16.021
He was not someone
who was giving a lot of TV interviews

270
00:14:16.105 --> 00:14:17.857
or press interviews,

271
00:14:17.940 --> 00:14:21.110
but I think, in person,
he was very charismatic.

272
00:14:21.986 --> 00:14:27.783
[Martin] Michael Jeffries, a very handsome
man from Southern California.

273
00:14:27.867 --> 00:14:31.370
Fit, uh, very intelligent.

274
00:14:31.453 --> 00:14:34.415
I would say much more private.

275
00:14:34.498 --> 00:14:36.876
Not shy, private.

276
00:14:37.376 --> 00:14:40.045
He had a pure mission,

277
00:14:40.129 --> 00:14:42.965
and that was to build Abercrombie

278
00:14:43.048 --> 00:14:46.552
and, you know, make it successful.

279
00:14:47.761 --> 00:14:51.098
[producer] What was the main thing
that motivated him?

280
00:14:51.765 --> 00:14:55.102
[sighs] Well, like everybody,

281
00:14:55.185 --> 00:14:57.187
financial reward.

282
00:15:07.448 --> 00:15:09.450
[woman 6] Mike Jeffries
comes to Abercrombie

283
00:15:09.533 --> 00:15:13.954
when it's still a part of Les Wexner's
retail empire out in Columbus, Ohio,

284
00:15:14.038 --> 00:15:16.832
so it's part
of the Limited's family of brands.

285
00:15:17.791 --> 00:15:18.959
[man 10] As a 25-year-old,

286
00:15:19.043 --> 00:15:22.379
I was going to everybody
that had retail spaces and say,

287
00:15:22.463 --> 00:15:23.797
"I have this idea for a store."

288
00:15:23.881 --> 00:15:25.633
"Would you rent me space?"

289
00:15:25.716 --> 00:15:27.217
And everybody turned me down.

290
00:15:27.301 --> 00:15:30.554
I had no money, no store.
I just had an idea.

291
00:15:30.638 --> 00:15:35.976
Leslie H. Wexner is one of the great
retail masterminds of America.

292
00:15:36.060 --> 00:15:39.188
He is the brains behind
a lot of the mall chains

293
00:15:39.271 --> 00:15:41.523
that we have in the country today.

294
00:15:43.400 --> 00:15:46.737
He was known
as the Merlin of the Mall, actually.

295
00:15:46.820 --> 00:15:48.739
[fruit machine chiming]

296
00:15:48.822 --> 00:15:51.450
[Karo] Les Wexner built brands
in one of two ways.

297
00:15:51.533 --> 00:15:54.662
He would either take an existing brand
and try a new concept

298
00:15:54.745 --> 00:15:56.580
that lived within that existing brand

299
00:15:56.664 --> 00:15:58.582
and then spin it out if it was successful,

300
00:15:58.666 --> 00:16:01.043
or he would acquire
a brand that was failing.

301
00:16:02.878 --> 00:16:05.881
[Rupp] <i>Abercrombie already had</i>
<i>been around for 100 years.</i>

302
00:16:06.465 --> 00:16:09.343
<i>It started as this outdoorsman brand,</i>

303
00:16:09.426 --> 00:16:12.471
<i>you know, very Americana heritage.</i>

304
00:16:14.473 --> 00:16:18.268
[Berfield] <i>E.B. White described</i>
<i>the windows of the store</i>

305
00:16:18.352 --> 00:16:20.771
<i>as being kind of the masculine dream.</i>

306
00:16:22.106 --> 00:16:25.234
[Maheshwari] <i>And it catered</i>
<i>to sort of elite sportsmen.</i>

307
00:16:25.818 --> 00:16:28.570
[news reporter] <i>On leaving</i>
<i>the White House, he led a safari to Africa</i>

308
00:16:28.654 --> 00:16:30.906
<i>and proved his worth as a big-game hunter.</i>

309
00:16:30.990 --> 00:16:33.575
[Maheshwari] <i>It sold to Teddy Roosevelt,</i>

310
00:16:34.201 --> 00:16:35.577
<i>Ernest Hemingway.</i>

311
00:16:39.373 --> 00:16:40.207
[gunshot]

312
00:16:40.290 --> 00:16:41.709
[Rupp] It fell on hard times.

313
00:16:42.292 --> 00:16:45.587
Les Wexner's company bought Abercrombie.

314
00:16:45.671 --> 00:16:47.631
They kind of tried to revamp the brand.

315
00:16:48.340 --> 00:16:53.095
It was a company that had
shaving cream, books,

316
00:16:53.178 --> 00:16:55.222
fishing gear, and all this stuff

317
00:16:55.305 --> 00:16:59.226
that old guys like Teddy Roosevelt
would probably love to have.

318
00:17:00.310 --> 00:17:01.562
[Karo] When Les first bought it,

319
00:17:01.645 --> 00:17:04.815
he tried to sort of recreate that
and couldn't make that work,

320
00:17:04.898 --> 00:17:07.693
which is when, I think,
he brought in Mike Jeffries,

321
00:17:07.776 --> 00:17:10.320
a failed CEO of Alcott & Andrews,

322
00:17:10.404 --> 00:17:11.989
which was a women's brand

323
00:17:12.072 --> 00:17:14.366
that focused on
professional businesswomen apparel.

324
00:17:17.161 --> 00:17:20.706
He brings in Mike Jeffries
and says, "Let's try it again."

325
00:17:21.790 --> 00:17:26.545
And that's when the idea of Abercrombie
as we know it today came into formation.

326
00:17:30.966 --> 00:17:37.181
We knew we wanted to be the coolest brand
for the 18- to 22-year-olds.

327
00:17:38.307 --> 00:17:43.771
[Rupp] When Mike gets there, initially,
he's wearing loafers and khakis,

328
00:17:43.854 --> 00:17:46.982
and eventually, that transitions
sort of to this button-down,

329
00:17:47.066 --> 00:17:49.193
jeans, and sandals look.

330
00:17:50.027 --> 00:17:52.738
He came up with this formula that worked.

331
00:17:53.238 --> 00:17:57.117
He found a way to connect
sort of the heritage of Abercrombie,

332
00:17:57.201 --> 00:17:59.953
as established in 1892,

333
00:18:00.037 --> 00:18:03.248
catering to elite, privileged people

334
00:18:03.332 --> 00:18:09.171
and combined it
with this very sexy, sexual imagery.

335
00:18:09.755 --> 00:18:12.216
[Berfield] It was meant to be exclusive.

336
00:18:12.299 --> 00:18:13.217
[register rings]

337
00:18:13.300 --> 00:18:17.387
He was proud of it
being an exclusive brand

338
00:18:17.471 --> 00:18:20.933
that conveyed what he considered
kind of a sense of cool.

339
00:18:21.433 --> 00:18:24.770
We built posters, and we put,

340
00:18:24.853 --> 00:18:26.688
"This is what Abercrombie is."

341
00:18:26.772 --> 00:18:29.441
"This is what Abercrombie isn't."

342
00:18:29.525 --> 00:18:32.528
-Abercrombie, the dog is a golden.
-[dog barks]

343
00:18:32.611 --> 00:18:35.697
-And the poodle is not Abercrombie.
-[dog whimpers]

344
00:18:35.781 --> 00:18:39.368
The Abercrombie college kid drives a Jeep.

345
00:18:39.451 --> 00:18:41.912
-[engine revs]
-And he doesn't drive the sedan.

346
00:18:42.579 --> 00:18:43.789
[horn beeps]

347
00:18:45.290 --> 00:18:47.876
Fashion is an industry that is notorious

348
00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:50.546
for not particularly doing
a lot of market research.

349
00:18:50.629 --> 00:18:53.257
The goal is not to give people
what they're asking for,

350
00:18:53.340 --> 00:18:56.051
but to make them ask
for what you're offering.

351
00:19:01.140 --> 00:19:03.350
[bell ringing]

352
00:19:07.062 --> 00:19:10.399
[Rupp] So in 1996,
Mike Jeffries took Abercrombie public.

353
00:19:10.899 --> 00:19:13.735
They were no longer
a part of Les Wexner's empire.

354
00:19:15.320 --> 00:19:16.905
[woman 9] The brand was just on top.

355
00:19:17.990 --> 00:19:19.867
He would have these quarterly meetings,

356
00:19:19.950 --> 00:19:24.204
and they were like massive pep rallies,
you know, around the fire pit

357
00:19:24.288 --> 00:19:27.541
to discuss how much money we're making.

358
00:19:28.292 --> 00:19:30.002
They're just like, "Money, money!"

359
00:19:30.627 --> 00:19:33.672
[Smith-Maglione] You know,
we all had stock, the early people.

360
00:19:33.755 --> 00:19:36.175
I always say I was in the right place
at the right time.

361
00:19:36.758 --> 00:19:39.178
[Blumberg] Abercrombie Kids
launched as well.

362
00:19:40.179 --> 00:19:43.390
And then Hollister sold
that sort of California dream.

363
00:19:44.183 --> 00:19:49.605
Abercrombie & Fitch really had a monopoly
on this, like, lifestyle apparel.

364
00:19:50.105 --> 00:19:53.150
And it helped
make Leslie Wexner a billionaire.

365
00:19:53.984 --> 00:19:57.696
[Tkacik] They built this massive campus
that was just like a college campus.

366
00:19:57.779 --> 00:20:00.616
They were, like,
one of the first big companies to do that,

367
00:20:00.699 --> 00:20:05.495
and the whole idea was that work was life
and life was work.

368
00:20:05.579 --> 00:20:07.247
Everybody would pull all-nighters

369
00:20:07.331 --> 00:20:10.167
because it was like
you were hanging out with your friends.

370
00:20:10.250 --> 00:20:11.668
[camera shutter clicking]

371
00:20:11.752 --> 00:20:15.380
My team called it 13th grade,
'cause it was like-- [laughing]

372
00:20:15.964 --> 00:20:17.299
It did feel like that.

373
00:20:18.383 --> 00:20:20.802
Mike would have
these dinners at his house.

374
00:20:20.886 --> 00:20:24.014
They were huge, catered, crazy events.

375
00:20:24.890 --> 00:20:28.018
There was a lot of partying, hooking up.
Then party with the waitstaff

376
00:20:28.101 --> 00:20:30.270
well after he left and went up to bed.

377
00:20:30.354 --> 00:20:34.066
David Leino tattooed himself
with Abercrombie.

378
00:20:34.149 --> 00:20:36.944
I mean, this became a thing.

379
00:20:37.027 --> 00:20:41.573
It-- it was like a disease
of "Abercrombie is it,

380
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."

381
00:20:45.953 --> 00:20:48.038
That's… It was the culture.

382
00:20:48.997 --> 00:20:52.209
[Sanchez] It was your life,
but it wasn't a bad life.

383
00:20:52.292 --> 00:20:55.212
You're going out
three, four, five nights a week.

384
00:20:55.295 --> 00:20:58.548
-We would start with two Irish car bombs.
-[ice clinks]

385
00:20:58.632 --> 00:20:59.967
That's how we started our night.

386
00:21:00.759 --> 00:21:04.805
That's what Abercrombie wanted.
We were seen as a cool group.

387
00:21:06.390 --> 00:21:09.268
In the first week
that I worked at Abercrombie & Fitch,

388
00:21:09.351 --> 00:21:14.648
the HR rep talked about how you could
write Abercrombie & Fitch with dog shit

389
00:21:14.731 --> 00:21:16.942
and put it on a baseball hat

390
00:21:17.025 --> 00:21:18.568
and sell it for 40 bucks.

391
00:21:18.652 --> 00:21:21.822
And she was just like, "That's where
we are right now. It's awesome."

392
00:21:24.866 --> 00:21:28.412
[Berfield] Mike Jeffries, from the start,
used his abilities

393
00:21:28.495 --> 00:21:31.748
and the resources he had from Wexner,

394
00:21:31.832 --> 00:21:34.418
uh, to begin marketing.

395
00:21:35.544 --> 00:21:38.422
[man 9] The imagery that built
that company doesn't exist anymore.

396
00:21:38.505 --> 00:21:40.299
Now it would be through Instagram.

397
00:21:40.382 --> 00:21:43.760
Abercrombie would be, like, an OnlyFans,
I think. Do you know what I mean?

398
00:21:48.890 --> 00:21:52.853
So I was editor-in-chief for the duration
of the run of the <i>A&F Quarterly.</i>

399
00:21:53.854 --> 00:21:55.772
[man 8] Quarterly, The Quarterly,

400
00:21:55.856 --> 00:21:58.317
A&F Quarterly, magalog,

401
00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:00.861
all sort of interchangeable terms.

402
00:22:04.406 --> 00:22:06.575
So the team was shockingly small.

403
00:22:06.658 --> 00:22:11.621
You know, Northeastern white guys
kind of putting this thing together.

404
00:22:11.705 --> 00:22:15.709
We're all, like, super young.
I mean, I was 21, 22.

405
00:22:15.792 --> 00:22:18.337
I was very, very lucky to have, like…

406
00:22:18.420 --> 00:22:21.590
to report to some of the biggest people
in the fashion industry

407
00:22:21.673 --> 00:22:23.592
as someone just out of college.

408
00:22:24.092 --> 00:22:25.677
[Carone] It felt very DIY.

409
00:22:25.761 --> 00:22:30.223
I mean, that's just sort of the spirit
that Savas and Bruce Weber fostered.

410
00:22:30.307 --> 00:22:33.685
I've always felt that men,
just like women,

411
00:22:33.769 --> 00:22:37.981
really need an appreciation of themselves
and the way they look physically.

412
00:22:38.065 --> 00:22:38.940
Go!

413
00:22:39.024 --> 00:22:42.319
I don't think you can overstate
the impact that Bruce Weber…

414
00:22:42.819 --> 00:22:44.946
his aesthetic had.

415
00:22:45.030 --> 00:22:48.450
I mean,
Mike put all his eggs in that basket.

416
00:22:50.285 --> 00:22:53.538
The Abercrombie aesthetic
is Bruce Weber's aesthetic.

417
00:22:54.164 --> 00:22:57.376
These joyful group shots,

418
00:22:57.459 --> 00:22:58.794
young people,

419
00:22:58.877 --> 00:23:01.088
sex, Americana,

420
00:23:01.171 --> 00:23:04.674
golden retrievers, out in the countryside.

421
00:23:05.175 --> 00:23:07.803
[man 11] Bruce Weber is, I think,
the highest-paid photographer.

422
00:23:07.886 --> 00:23:09.096
He was famous.

423
00:23:09.179 --> 00:23:12.265
And he was doing Calvin Klein,
he was doing everyone,

424
00:23:12.349 --> 00:23:15.060
and he made a beautiful book
called <i>Bear Pond.</i>

425
00:23:15.685 --> 00:23:18.814
I'd never seen anything like it,
and that's when I knew I was gay.

426
00:23:18.897 --> 00:23:22.275
Every, uh… gay man I know owns--

427
00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:24.528
I certainly-- There's a copy over there.

428
00:23:26.780 --> 00:23:30.075
[Givhan] Abercrombie and Bruce Weber
did some video content.

429
00:23:31.993 --> 00:23:34.079
[crew] This is Brandon. Take one. Mark.

430
00:23:35.163 --> 00:23:37.207
[Weber] This is a musical we're doing,

431
00:23:37.290 --> 00:23:39.543
and we need you to dance. Do you dance?

432
00:23:39.626 --> 00:23:43.004
I don't really dance,
but I pretend I dance,

433
00:23:43.088 --> 00:23:44.673
and that's usually good enough.

434
00:23:46.716 --> 00:23:50.178
[man 12] It was clear to anyone
who was paying attention

435
00:23:50.262 --> 00:23:54.558
that there were many gay men
involved in all of it.

436
00:23:54.641 --> 00:23:57.185
I think the brilliance of the brand
was that that was…

437
00:23:57.269 --> 00:24:01.314
like, went right over the head
of their target customer,

438
00:24:01.398 --> 00:24:04.359
like, the straight, college frat bro.

439
00:24:05.402 --> 00:24:09.114
After college, I moved to San Francisco
and was working at <i>XY Magazine,</i>

440
00:24:09.197 --> 00:24:11.783
which was a magazine for young gay men.

441
00:24:11.867 --> 00:24:15.579
A lot of high school students
would send us their photo

442
00:24:15.662 --> 00:24:17.664
and would send us
an essay or an experience

443
00:24:17.747 --> 00:24:20.208
of what it was like
being out in their high school.

444
00:24:20.292 --> 00:24:25.922
It was still possible in the late '90s
to be a gay kid in Iowa

445
00:24:26.006 --> 00:24:27.924
and to think that you were the only one.

446
00:24:28.758 --> 00:24:31.553
More of those boys
started wearing Abercrombie,

447
00:24:31.636 --> 00:24:34.848
and that fashion world,
and that kind of masculinity,

448
00:24:34.931 --> 00:24:36.057
and whatever that meant,

449
00:24:36.141 --> 00:24:38.727
all of this was happening
in the late '90s.

450
00:24:43.565 --> 00:24:47.486
[Givhan] For a lot of people,
they looked at those ads and those videos

451
00:24:47.569 --> 00:24:51.406
and were like,
"My fantasy is being represented."

452
00:24:53.325 --> 00:24:59.956
What Bruce Weber does is to give back
to gay people this classical thing.

453
00:25:00.040 --> 00:25:03.293
It's, like, take away shame from the past,

454
00:25:03.376 --> 00:25:08.673
this distance from immediate sex
or sex jokes or gayness.

455
00:25:09.591 --> 00:25:10.425
It's like a…

456
00:25:11.384 --> 00:25:12.427
a distance.

457
00:25:15.180 --> 00:25:18.433
Bruce Weber is not the first person
to do Bruce Weber boys.

458
00:25:18.517 --> 00:25:21.478
There's been a history of it
going back to ancient Greece.

459
00:25:23.396 --> 00:25:24.731
Abercrombie came to me

460
00:25:24.814 --> 00:25:27.859
and asked me to create the murals
for the Abercrombie stores.

461
00:25:30.987 --> 00:25:35.283
These homoerotic but beautiful guys
interacting with each other.

462
00:25:36.868 --> 00:25:41.540
They make you think about the eternal
and that everything is forever good.

463
00:25:45.544 --> 00:25:46.461
Take one. Mark.

464
00:25:50.465 --> 00:25:52.467
So I'm the armpit guy.

465
00:25:54.094 --> 00:25:57.556
Abercrombie found a niche
with finding brand new models.

466
00:25:57.639 --> 00:25:59.349
Middle America,

467
00:25:59.432 --> 00:26:01.351
big, strong, like, dudes.

468
00:26:01.434 --> 00:26:03.645
And I was like…
[mimics accent] "Oh yeah, don't you know,

469
00:26:03.728 --> 00:26:06.147
I'm, like, here from Minnesota
for my modeling."

470
00:26:07.649 --> 00:26:11.403
I guess I looked like what they kind of
were always puttin' out there.

471
00:26:12.153 --> 00:26:13.738
I'm from Nebraska.

472
00:26:13.822 --> 00:26:16.616
I was captain of the football team,
of the wrestling team,

473
00:26:16.700 --> 00:26:19.077
homecoming king, all that kind of stuff.

474
00:26:19.911 --> 00:26:23.081
It wasn't, like, a big dream of mine
to be an Abercrombie model.

475
00:26:23.790 --> 00:26:26.001
I was drunk in a bar, and some lady--

476
00:26:26.084 --> 00:26:29.963
some gal that was apparently
a scout for Abercrombie was like, um,

477
00:26:30.046 --> 00:26:32.465
"Will you come into the store tomorrow?
You have a great look."

478
00:26:33.800 --> 00:26:35.302
We took a couple Polaroids,

479
00:26:35.385 --> 00:26:37.470
and then three weeks later,
I was in Brazil.

480
00:26:38.263 --> 00:26:41.975
That was the first time I saw the ocean
and traveled outside of Nebraska.

481
00:26:44.394 --> 00:26:48.064
People on crew would just insinuate
to just be yourself, be original,

482
00:26:48.148 --> 00:26:49.733
just do whatever.

483
00:26:49.816 --> 00:26:52.068
You know, climb trees, jump in water.

484
00:26:52.652 --> 00:26:55.488
Bruce, if you caught his eye
doing something natural,

485
00:26:56.031 --> 00:26:57.699
interacting with the wilderness,

486
00:26:57.782 --> 00:27:00.452
that would be a good way
to get your picture taken.

487
00:27:00.952 --> 00:27:02.704
There would just be guys in a tree,

488
00:27:02.787 --> 00:27:06.458
just like, "Hey, Bruce!
It's a tree, and I'm in it."

489
00:27:06.541 --> 00:27:09.836
Or just, like, doing push-ups on a curb.

490
00:27:09.919 --> 00:27:13.131
The guys were so testosteroney
'cause it's a bunch of ripped dudes.

491
00:27:13.214 --> 00:27:15.759
And then the guys
are trying to impress the women.

492
00:27:15.842 --> 00:27:18.845
It's really… It's just, like,
humanity at its basic level.

493
00:27:23.933 --> 00:27:25.310
[Sanchez] Three, four times a year,

494
00:27:25.393 --> 00:27:29.981
we got Bruce Weber photos
to put up in our store.

495
00:27:31.107 --> 00:27:35.236
When you're excited about
the unveil of the Bruce Weber photos…

496
00:27:35.320 --> 00:27:40.533
Who did they choose as the representative
of Abercrombie & Fitch?

497
00:27:41.660 --> 00:27:43.787
There's other brands for-- for everybody.

498
00:27:45.121 --> 00:27:46.748
That's Abercrombie & Fitch.

499
00:27:46.831 --> 00:27:50.627
It behooved me to get out
and recruit these types of people

500
00:27:51.127 --> 00:27:54.005
so that they could create an environment.

501
00:27:54.089 --> 00:27:55.757
How do you think you're gonna do?

502
00:27:56.341 --> 00:27:57.175
Pretty good.

503
00:27:57.759 --> 00:27:59.969
<i>♪ I'm head of the class ♪</i>

504
00:28:00.470 --> 00:28:02.263
<i>♪ I'm popular… ♪</i>

505
00:28:02.931 --> 00:28:06.726
[Denizet-Lewis] The stores would
each focus on a particular college campus,

506
00:28:06.810 --> 00:28:11.981
and they would try to recruit
the best-looking fraternity guys.

507
00:28:12.065 --> 00:28:14.359
If a fraternity guy was popular,

508
00:28:14.442 --> 00:28:16.986
other people would say,
"All right, what's he wearing?"

509
00:28:17.070 --> 00:28:18.363
And wanna copy that.

510
00:28:18.446 --> 00:28:20.407
♪ I'm <i>the party star ♪</i>

511
00:28:20.490 --> 00:28:22.283
<i>♪ I'm popular ♪</i>

512
00:28:22.367 --> 00:28:27.330
The bet was that if we get
the right guys on the right fraternities

513
00:28:27.414 --> 00:28:31.751
to wear the clothes and be ambassadors
for the clothes, then that's gonna--

514
00:28:31.835 --> 00:28:34.421
Other people are gonna wanna copy that.

515
00:28:34.504 --> 00:28:37.173
It was, like, pre-digital,
like, influencer marketing.

516
00:28:37.257 --> 00:28:38.758
As a manager at Abercrombie,

517
00:28:38.842 --> 00:28:42.011
they teach you very early on
about recruiting.

518
00:28:42.095 --> 00:28:44.389
You just-- You have to recruit,

519
00:28:44.472 --> 00:28:49.894
but not only do you have to recruit,
you have to recruit good-looking people,

520
00:28:49.978 --> 00:28:52.063
and this is what good-looking looks like.

521
00:28:52.147 --> 00:28:53.773
We literally had a book.

522
00:28:54.607 --> 00:28:56.192
[female voice] <i>Exhibiting the A&F look</i>

523
00:28:56.276 --> 00:28:59.988
<i>is a tremendously important part</i>
<i>of the overall experience</i>

524
00:29:00.071 --> 00:29:02.407
<i>at the Abercrombie & Fitch stores.</i>

525
00:29:02.490 --> 00:29:06.661
<i>Our people in the store</i>
<i>are an inspiration to the customer.</i>

526
00:29:06.745 --> 00:29:12.459
<i>A neatly combed, attractive,</i>
<i>natural, classic hairstyle is acceptable.</i>

527
00:29:13.084 --> 00:29:16.337
<i>Dreadlocks are unacceptable</i>
<i>for men and women.</i>

528
00:29:17.589 --> 00:29:19.924
<i>Gold chains are not acceptable for men.</i>

529
00:29:20.467 --> 00:29:24.763
<i>Women may wear</i>
<i>a thin, short, delicate silver necklace.</i>

530
00:29:24.846 --> 00:29:27.474
<i>Brand representatives are required to wear</i>

531
00:29:27.557 --> 00:29:30.018
<i>appropriate undergarments at all times.</i>

532
00:29:30.977 --> 00:29:32.020
<i>Natural.</i>

533
00:29:32.103 --> 00:29:33.313
<i>American.</i>

534
00:29:33.396 --> 00:29:34.606
<i>Classic.</i>

535
00:29:34.689 --> 00:29:36.399
<i>The A&F look.</i>

536
00:29:37.901 --> 00:29:43.281
No other mall brand went to the extreme
that Abercrombie did

537
00:29:43.364 --> 00:29:48.870
in micromanaging the look
of everything from the store

538
00:29:48.953 --> 00:29:52.624
down to, like, the person
who was cleaning up the stockroom.

539
00:29:52.707 --> 00:29:55.502
Jeffries was an extreme--

540
00:29:55.585 --> 00:29:58.254
He was very much a micromanager.

541
00:29:58.338 --> 00:30:03.384
I mean, if you look at the stores,
they were absolutely pristine. Right?

542
00:30:03.468 --> 00:30:06.638
I mean, it was--
Every detail, Mike cared about.

543
00:30:07.597 --> 00:30:10.725
[Rupp] Mike Jeffries was well-known
for his unannounced store visits.

544
00:30:10.809 --> 00:30:15.021
He cared about what stores looked like,
and he wanted to see them in person.

545
00:30:15.104 --> 00:30:17.106
A lot of people
have called them "blitzes."

546
00:30:17.190 --> 00:30:19.609
[Sanchez] So say a visit was on Friday.

547
00:30:19.692 --> 00:30:22.529
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

548
00:30:22.612 --> 00:30:24.614
you were doin' all-nights.

549
00:30:24.697 --> 00:30:28.034
This is where we gotta make sure,
like, everything is spick-and-span.

550
00:30:28.117 --> 00:30:29.536
Everything gets wiped down.

551
00:30:29.619 --> 00:30:30.954
There's no dust anywhere.

552
00:30:31.037 --> 00:30:33.164
The moose head looks clean.

553
00:30:33.665 --> 00:30:37.460
But the thing that mattered most, day-of,
was who was working.

554
00:30:37.544 --> 00:30:40.797
There were some people
that you kept on staff just for visits.

555
00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:45.677
It wasn't, "Hey, your store's not hitting
this number or hitting that number."

556
00:30:45.760 --> 00:30:48.346
It was, "You gotta get
more good-looking people in here."

557
00:30:48.847 --> 00:30:52.642
The high-water mark,
when we all finally knew that we made it,

558
00:30:52.725 --> 00:30:55.311
was when LFO came out with "Summer Girls."

559
00:30:55.395 --> 00:30:56.563
That LFO song.

560
00:30:56.646 --> 00:30:57.522
"Summer Girls."

561
00:30:57.605 --> 00:31:00.400
<i>♪ I like girls who wear</i>
<i>Abercrombie & Fitch ♪</i>

562
00:31:00.483 --> 00:31:02.360
"I like girls that wear
Abercrombie & Fitch."

563
00:31:02.443 --> 00:31:03.987
<i>♪ I'd take 'em if I had one wish ♪</i>

564
00:31:04.070 --> 00:31:06.739
"I think it's fly…"
Something about summer. "…the summer."

565
00:31:06.823 --> 00:31:09.576
It came out in the summer.
"We're doing something right."

566
00:31:10.618 --> 00:31:13.663
<i>♪ I like girls that wear</i>
<i>Abercrombie & Fitch ♪</i>

567
00:31:13.746 --> 00:31:15.582
<i>♪ I'd take her if I had one wish ♪</i>

568
00:31:16.165 --> 00:31:18.251
<i>♪ She's been gone since that summer… ♪</i>

569
00:31:18.334 --> 00:31:22.005
That was probably the coolest thing
that had ever happened to Mike Jeffries.

570
00:31:22.505 --> 00:31:25.466
In that moment, he'd knew he'd--
he'd done what he wanted.

571
00:31:26.634 --> 00:31:29.512
From a purely creative point of view,

572
00:31:30.054 --> 00:31:31.472
he was a mad genius.

573
00:31:31.556 --> 00:31:33.516
He knows what he's doing
and what he wants,

574
00:31:33.600 --> 00:31:36.686
and he's kinda like,
"I don't care what anyone else is doing."

575
00:31:36.769 --> 00:31:41.858
"I'm gonna do what I think
is beautiful, cool," you know, whatever.

576
00:31:41.941 --> 00:31:44.360
[sighs] And he did. He executed on it.

577
00:31:50.867 --> 00:31:55.413
So my first interaction with Abercrombie
was receiving a catalog out of the blue.

578
00:31:55.496 --> 00:31:57.415
I don't know how I got
on their mailing list.

579
00:31:57.498 --> 00:32:01.002
And I remember seeing
these young people smiling and frolicking,

580
00:32:01.085 --> 00:32:03.171
and I was like,
"When I'm in college, maybe…

581
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

582
00:32:08.009 --> 00:32:09.594
and jump around and, I don't know,

583
00:32:09.677 --> 00:32:12.347
get in a dog pile like they do
in these catalogs."

584
00:32:12.430 --> 00:32:13.723
[laughing] I don't know!

585
00:32:15.391 --> 00:32:17.769
My name's Phil Yu. I run a blog

586
00:32:17.852 --> 00:32:19.187
called <i>Angry Asian Man</i>

587
00:32:20.021 --> 00:32:23.775
to talk about my Asian American identity
and my community.

588
00:32:24.609 --> 00:32:28.237
I remember some readers
started sending photos to me about like,

589
00:32:28.321 --> 00:32:30.198
"Have you seen this shit at Abercrombie?"

590
00:32:30.281 --> 00:32:32.659
You know, and it was--
It was these T-shirts.

591
00:32:34.994 --> 00:32:39.332
Graphic tees for us were our personality.

592
00:32:40.792 --> 00:32:43.711
You know, we were moving at light speed.

593
00:32:43.795 --> 00:32:47.173
The graphic tee business
was a one and done type thing,

594
00:32:47.256 --> 00:32:50.802
so you had to continuously produce art.

595
00:32:51.511 --> 00:32:55.223
All those stupid slogans we put on there
and everything, that was us.

596
00:32:55.306 --> 00:32:56.599
We didn't have copywriters.

597
00:32:56.683 --> 00:32:59.018
They really wanted us to be irreverent.

598
00:32:59.102 --> 00:33:01.187
They really wanted us to be funny,

599
00:33:01.896 --> 00:33:06.109
relevant to that late teen,
early 20s, like, college crowd.

600
00:33:07.276 --> 00:33:09.487
[Sheahan] One of the themes
was Buddha Fest,

601
00:33:09.570 --> 00:33:13.324
and it had, like,
a cliché Asian big fat Buddha.

602
00:33:13.408 --> 00:33:15.952
I do remember one
that I got a kick out of that was like,

603
00:33:16.035 --> 00:33:19.122
"West Virginia,
no lifeguards in this gene pool."

604
00:33:19.205 --> 00:33:20.331
I laughed at the time,

605
00:33:20.415 --> 00:33:24.002
and now I'm like,
"That's really offensive and problematic."

606
00:33:24.085 --> 00:33:29.007
The second shirt on the table
was "Juan more for the road."

607
00:33:29.090 --> 00:33:32.468
So they had a donkey
holding a taco with a sombrero.

608
00:33:33.052 --> 00:33:34.679
The one that everybody remembers,

609
00:33:34.762 --> 00:33:38.933
Wong Brothers,
advertising a fictional laundry service.

610
00:33:39.017 --> 00:33:41.728
The slogan was,
"Two Wongs can make it white."

611
00:33:43.604 --> 00:33:45.398
Pop culture Orientalism, right?

612
00:33:45.481 --> 00:33:46.983
-[buzzer sounds]
-[grunts]

613
00:33:47.066 --> 00:33:50.653
[Yu] It's all this stuff taken from
people's understanding of Asians…

614
00:33:50.737 --> 00:33:51.612
[laughing]

615
00:33:51.696 --> 00:33:53.906
…if you just watched
American TV and movies.

616
00:33:53.990 --> 00:33:55.408
[gong sounds]

617
00:33:55.491 --> 00:33:58.244
What's happenin', hot stuff?

618
00:33:58.327 --> 00:34:01.581
[Yu] So it's the kitschy font
and the-- sort of the caricatures

619
00:34:01.664 --> 00:34:04.542
of the buck-toothed
and the slant-eyed Asian, so…

620
00:34:05.043 --> 00:34:06.878
"Two Wongs can make it white."

621
00:34:08.921 --> 00:34:10.381
Asian Americans are often taught

622
00:34:10.465 --> 00:34:12.884
that you're supposed to
just keep your head down,

623
00:34:12.967 --> 00:34:14.177
not rock the boat,

624
00:34:14.677 --> 00:34:17.430
especially as a lot of us
are the children of immigrants.

625
00:34:17.513 --> 00:34:18.347
But I think

626
00:34:19.348 --> 00:34:22.351
at that moment, I was like,
"It's okay to be angry about this."

627
00:34:25.021 --> 00:34:28.107
[Gruys] I don't know what it was,
but, like, the kids,

628
00:34:28.191 --> 00:34:30.485
the consumers
just loved wearing those tees,

629
00:34:30.568 --> 00:34:31.944
so we kept makin' 'em.

630
00:34:32.904 --> 00:34:33.821
And they were cheap.

631
00:34:33.905 --> 00:34:37.158
You could sell tees
for, like, an 85% markup.

632
00:34:37.241 --> 00:34:38.993
Whenever something like this happens,

633
00:34:39.077 --> 00:34:41.996
I always imagined in my mind
a scenario where somebody, like--

634
00:34:42.080 --> 00:34:44.665
Man, if they just had
one person who was like,

635
00:34:44.749 --> 00:34:46.417
"Maybe this is not a good idea."

636
00:34:46.501 --> 00:34:48.753
I had nothing to do with whatever,
but I will say this.

637
00:34:48.836 --> 00:34:51.839
Two of the main team people
were Asian Americans,

638
00:34:52.340 --> 00:34:54.759
which is why
it got approved in the first place.

639
00:34:54.842 --> 00:34:58.930
You know, whenever-- This is--
I feel like you just dropped a bomb on me.

640
00:34:59.013 --> 00:35:02.016
In terms of-- What?
There was an Asian designer there?

641
00:35:02.100 --> 00:35:03.309
Maybe there was somebody,

642
00:35:03.392 --> 00:35:07.480
and then, you know, your cover is--
is the one Asian guy in the room.

643
00:35:07.563 --> 00:35:10.566
It's the one guy who's like, "I don't…"
"Do you find it offensive?"

644
00:35:10.650 --> 00:35:13.611
And is that guy really gonna be,
like, "No." I mean, "Yeah."

645
00:35:13.694 --> 00:35:16.656
Or is he gonna say-- Or is he gonna
flip over the table and be, like,

646
00:35:16.739 --> 00:35:19.200
"I-- No, I think this is
really offensive to my identity."

647
00:35:19.283 --> 00:35:23.037
In this corporate, stuffy environment
where everyone around you is white,

648
00:35:23.121 --> 00:35:24.080
and you're like--

649
00:35:24.163 --> 00:35:27.166
I don't know if that's really
a safe place to do that, right?

650
00:35:28.334 --> 00:35:30.044
[camera shutter clicking]

651
00:35:33.589 --> 00:35:35.633
This blatant racist product

652
00:35:35.716 --> 00:35:39.053
got a lot of Asian American students
particularly enraged.

653
00:35:39.554 --> 00:35:41.055
They were hitting them where,

654
00:35:41.139 --> 00:35:43.683
"This was supposed to be my jam,
supposed to be for me,"

655
00:35:43.766 --> 00:35:47.019
and that's where the reaction
really started to grow amongst students,

656
00:35:47.103 --> 00:35:48.604
Asian American student groups.

657
00:35:48.688 --> 00:35:50.273
[crowd yelling]

658
00:35:53.985 --> 00:35:58.573
There's always people who don't really see
the pain behind something like that

659
00:35:58.656 --> 00:36:01.450
and just see it
as a funny thing that happened.

660
00:36:01.534 --> 00:36:03.911
The protest was nonviolent and orderly,

661
00:36:03.995 --> 00:36:06.205
but the same cannot be said
of the parking lot

662
00:36:06.289 --> 00:36:07.957
when they all went to drive home.

663
00:36:08.040 --> 00:36:09.667
[audience laughter]

664
00:36:10.668 --> 00:36:13.212
[producer] Let's talk about
the Two Wongs shirt.

665
00:36:13.296 --> 00:36:16.299
That shirt-- That's one of the tees
that I remember. [laughs]

666
00:36:16.382 --> 00:36:19.468
Mike would pull everything
back from the stores,

667
00:36:19.552 --> 00:36:21.345
and we actually would burn them

668
00:36:22.680 --> 00:36:26.851
to make sure nobody ever ended up
getting the merchandise.

669
00:36:28.102 --> 00:36:30.021
But they kept
the "Juan more for the road."

670
00:36:30.104 --> 00:36:32.565
Clearly, it was, like, a donkey, you know.

671
00:36:33.065 --> 00:36:35.318
Obviously,
they were insinuating something.

672
00:36:37.486 --> 00:36:39.363
[Yu] The poor publicist
who has to write this,

673
00:36:39.447 --> 00:36:44.619
they actually said, "We thought
that Asians would love these shirts."

674
00:36:44.702 --> 00:36:47.496
That's from a press release
from-- from Abercrombie.

675
00:36:47.580 --> 00:36:51.500
We were always just trying to be
quick-witted and things like that.

676
00:36:51.584 --> 00:36:54.879
And, um… I know
that we made a couple mistakes.

677
00:36:54.962 --> 00:36:58.716
We kind of owned up to our responsibility,

678
00:36:58.799 --> 00:36:59.800
made it

679
00:37:00.927 --> 00:37:03.346
right as fast as we could,

680
00:37:03.429 --> 00:37:07.016
and then we kind of,
you know, learned and moved on.

681
00:37:07.892 --> 00:37:11.062
Then we would get in trouble,
and, "Don't do that again."

682
00:37:11.145 --> 00:37:13.439
"But do something just like it," you know.

683
00:37:14.106 --> 00:37:17.526
Obviously, it's from the top down
if they approve those kinds of shirts,

684
00:37:17.610 --> 00:37:21.239
of what there… what might have been
going on behind the scenes.

685
00:37:23.115 --> 00:37:25.451
You know,
they're operating in a bubble, right?

686
00:37:25.534 --> 00:37:29.664
They're operating in a place
where they don't see what it comes down to

687
00:37:29.747 --> 00:37:33.209
at that consumer level
of this Asian kid looking at these shirts

688
00:37:33.292 --> 00:37:35.127
and being like, "What is this bullshit?"

689
00:37:35.211 --> 00:37:37.463
Or being confused.
"Is this supposed to be cool?"

690
00:37:37.546 --> 00:37:41.342
Like, "This is all I see of myself
when I look at pop culture."

691
00:37:41.425 --> 00:37:44.804
Like, "Maybe this is
what I'm supposed to accept

692
00:37:44.887 --> 00:37:46.722
as an Asian American," you know.

693
00:37:47.723 --> 00:37:53.980
The first time I became aware
of the image becoming problematic for me

694
00:37:54.063 --> 00:37:56.440
was Sam Raimi's <i>Spider-Man.</i>

695
00:37:56.524 --> 00:37:58.901
I think it came out in 2001,
with Tobey Maguire.

696
00:37:58.985 --> 00:38:00.319
Flash, it was just an accident!

697
00:38:00.403 --> 00:38:04.073
If you know the comics, Peter Parker's
biggest bully is Flash Thompson,

698
00:38:04.156 --> 00:38:08.286
and he's traditionally been
a big, blond, like, asshole.

699
00:38:08.369 --> 00:38:11.622
In the movie, he is dressed head-to-toe
in Abercrombie the entire time,

700
00:38:11.706 --> 00:38:13.916
and it really upset me.
It really, really upset me.

701
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?

702
00:38:17.628 --> 00:38:20.047
'Cause something had shifted there, so…

703
00:38:20.131 --> 00:38:22.550
[producer] Before that,
what did Abercrombie signify to you?

704
00:38:22.633 --> 00:38:25.761
It was-- It was a cool kid
who would never do anything like that.

705
00:38:26.262 --> 00:38:28.889
<i>♪ I'm the head of the class ♪</i>

706
00:38:28.973 --> 00:38:31.100
<i>♪ I'm popular</i> ♪

707
00:38:31.183 --> 00:38:35.521
In 2003, I was a retail reporter
at <i>The Wall Street Journal,</i>

708
00:38:35.604 --> 00:38:40.109
and, um, I'm in New York, visiting stores.

709
00:38:40.609 --> 00:38:44.071
A colleague and I walk into
this American Eagle Outfitters store.

710
00:38:44.155 --> 00:38:47.033
My colleague immediately starts
chatting up the manager.

711
00:38:47.116 --> 00:38:50.119
She asked, "How'd you end up
at American Eagle Outfitters?"

712
00:38:50.202 --> 00:38:53.706
And she says, "I was a district manager
for Abercrombie & Fitch,

713
00:38:53.789 --> 00:38:56.208
and then I moved over."
And my colleague says,

714
00:38:56.292 --> 00:38:57.710
"Oh, that's interesting."

715
00:38:57.793 --> 00:39:02.298
"It's a slightly different culture,
trying to keep everybody brand positive."

716
00:39:02.381 --> 00:39:07.219
And this manager just starts crying.

717
00:39:07.303 --> 00:39:10.014
And she's like, "I'm so happy here."

718
00:39:10.097 --> 00:39:12.391
"I get to hire who I want."

719
00:39:12.475 --> 00:39:16.020
She gestures to the guy
who's leading women to the dressing room,

720
00:39:16.103 --> 00:39:18.731
who's, like, a light-skinned Black guy
with dreadlocks.

721
00:39:19.231 --> 00:39:23.694
And my colleague sort of nods
like she understands what is being said.

722
00:39:24.195 --> 00:39:26.197
I'm clearly not getting something here.

723
00:39:27.323 --> 00:39:32.453
So I started interviewing people who had
Abercrombie & Fitch on their résumés,

724
00:39:32.536 --> 00:39:34.455
and, essentially, what I learned was,

725
00:39:34.538 --> 00:39:38.709
most people were recruited
for the job on the basis of their looks.

726
00:39:40.586 --> 00:39:44.715
What I started to sense
was that they were firing people too.

727
00:39:44.799 --> 00:39:47.510
And that was the thing that really got me,

728
00:39:47.593 --> 00:39:50.554
because that seemed
like it maybe wasn't legal?

729
00:39:50.638 --> 00:39:57.061
So I finally found a manager,
um, to sort of tell me, "Listen,

730
00:39:57.645 --> 00:40:02.942
you have to rank all your employees
on the scale of, like, cool to rocks."

731
00:40:03.025 --> 00:40:04.360
"And if they aren't at least cool,

732
00:40:04.443 --> 00:40:07.238
then you have to zero them out
off the schedule."

733
00:40:07.321 --> 00:40:09.073
It didn't matter what your sales were.

734
00:40:09.156 --> 00:40:14.203
All that mattered was that
the employees that you took pictures of

735
00:40:14.286 --> 00:40:17.331
and sent back to headquarters were hot.

736
00:40:18.666 --> 00:40:20.292
Clearly this is illegal?

737
00:40:21.001 --> 00:40:21.919
Right?

738
00:40:23.838 --> 00:40:26.549
I wasn't ever scheduled a ton of hours.

739
00:40:26.632 --> 00:40:28.384
So I went to one of the managers,

740
00:40:28.467 --> 00:40:30.803
and I said,
"Hey, can I have more day shifts?"

741
00:40:30.886 --> 00:40:33.889
And he said, "You know,
there aren't any. They're packed."

742
00:40:33.973 --> 00:40:35.683
"All we have are these night shifts."

743
00:40:35.766 --> 00:40:40.187
I remember telling him,
"I don't like vacuuming," you know.

744
00:40:40.271 --> 00:40:42.022
"I don't like cleaning the windows,"

745
00:40:42.106 --> 00:40:46.068
and he told me, "But, Carla,
you're such a good window washer."

746
00:40:46.152 --> 00:40:47.695
"You're so good at it."

747
00:40:47.778 --> 00:40:50.531
And I told him,
"Well, you know, I can swap with someone."

748
00:40:50.614 --> 00:40:53.409
"My friend said she'd be fine
to swap this four-hour shift."

749
00:40:53.492 --> 00:40:55.411
"She doesn't mind working at night."

750
00:40:55.494 --> 00:40:57.663
"Well, no,
we don't like you guys to swap."

751
00:40:57.746 --> 00:41:00.124
"If you were assigned that shift,
you were assigned it."

752
00:41:00.207 --> 00:41:03.502
So I complain to my girlfriend,
"I can't believe this. What is going on?"

753
00:41:03.586 --> 00:41:06.255
She told me, "I bet they're not
scheduling you because you're Black."

754
00:41:06.338 --> 00:41:08.215
"Like, no other Black people work there."

755
00:41:09.216 --> 00:41:11.302
When she said that,
it was one of those, like…

756
00:41:11.385 --> 00:41:14.346
"Oh, I know.
Like, in the heart of my heart, I know."

757
00:41:14.430 --> 00:41:15.473
"I know that's why,

758
00:41:15.556 --> 00:41:17.600
but maybe I can do something
to overcome that."

759
00:41:17.683 --> 00:41:20.978
"This is a company.
This isn't, like, one person

760
00:41:21.979 --> 00:41:22.813
stopping me."

761
00:41:22.897 --> 00:41:25.858
And then after that,
I was not on the schedule.

762
00:41:25.941 --> 00:41:29.570
And I remember asking him,
"What should I do? Do I still work here?"

763
00:41:29.653 --> 00:41:32.156
"I haven't been on the schedule
in two months,"

764
00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:34.742
and he's like,
"No, you do. Just keep calling us."

765
00:41:35.367 --> 00:41:37.953
I knew I had been fired,
and I just moved on.

766
00:41:38.037 --> 00:41:39.663
I mean, there wasn't a resignation.

767
00:41:39.747 --> 00:41:43.501
There wasn't anyone that called me.
I just… It was over.

768
00:41:45.377 --> 00:41:48.380
Where our store was
was in very close proximity to UC Irvine.

769
00:41:48.464 --> 00:41:52.301
UC Irvine is known as UCI,
University of Chinese and Indians.

770
00:41:52.384 --> 00:41:53.802
It's, like, 75% Asian.

771
00:41:53.886 --> 00:41:56.722
Korean, Indian, Chinese, Japanese.

772
00:41:56.805 --> 00:41:58.849
So it wasn't a surprise

773
00:41:58.933 --> 00:42:02.853
that a lot of the staff
were of Asian descent.

774
00:42:03.521 --> 00:42:09.693
We finished the holiday season,
and we're notified by a note saying,

775
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."

776
00:42:14.406 --> 00:42:16.784
My name wasn't on the list,

777
00:42:16.867 --> 00:42:21.539
so I talked to my other friends.

778
00:42:21.622 --> 00:42:25.000
I was like, "My name wasn't on the list.
Did you guys--"

779
00:42:25.084 --> 00:42:26.835
They're like, "We're not on the list."

780
00:42:26.919 --> 00:42:28.712
And I was like, "That's super weird."

781
00:42:28.796 --> 00:42:32.007
Then we talked to our assistant manager,
who's Asian American.

782
00:42:32.091 --> 00:42:35.719
He said the real reason
is because after the corporate blitz,

783
00:42:35.803 --> 00:42:38.931
one of the people from corporate
went around,

784
00:42:39.014 --> 00:42:42.309
and they noticed
a bunch of Asian people in the store.

785
00:42:42.393 --> 00:42:45.062
They said, "You need more staff
that looks like this."

786
00:42:45.145 --> 00:42:47.773
And they pointed to an Abercrombie poster,

787
00:42:47.856 --> 00:42:50.359
and it was-- it was a Caucasian model.

788
00:42:54.363 --> 00:42:57.992
It hurt because I had such
a positive experience with this company,

789
00:42:58.075 --> 00:42:59.577
and to find out they were like,

790
00:42:59.660 --> 00:43:01.996
"No, we don't want you
because of the way you look,"

791
00:43:02.079 --> 00:43:03.497
it actually was very hurtful.

792
00:43:04.456 --> 00:43:06.208
Then I took all the posters down.

793
00:43:06.292 --> 00:43:09.920
It was because I didn't look like
those people in the photograph

794
00:43:10.004 --> 00:43:12.256
that that's why
I didn't work there anymore.

795
00:43:12.756 --> 00:43:13.841
I was mad.

796
00:43:13.924 --> 00:43:18.721
But what are you gonna do?
We're, like, 21-year-olds. What do you do?

797
00:43:18.804 --> 00:43:21.557
It seemed super explicit.

798
00:43:21.640 --> 00:43:24.518
I went to the store.

799
00:43:24.602 --> 00:43:26.812
I spoke with whoever was working there,

800
00:43:26.895 --> 00:43:28.981
and she said,
"I'm sorry. We can't rehire you."

801
00:43:29.064 --> 00:43:30.816
And I asked, "Why not?"

802
00:43:31.567 --> 00:43:34.570
And she said,
"My manager said we can't rehire you

803
00:43:34.653 --> 00:43:38.073
'cause we already have
too many Filipinos working at this store."

804
00:43:39.783 --> 00:43:41.744
I was like, "Are you serious?"

805
00:43:41.827 --> 00:43:45.623
And she looked pretty uncomfortable,
and she was like, "Yeah."

806
00:43:46.624 --> 00:43:48.709
At no point did I ever say I was Filipino,

807
00:43:48.792 --> 00:43:51.629
so that was a guess on the part
of the person that worked there

808
00:43:51.712 --> 00:43:52.921
that I was Filipino.

809
00:43:53.631 --> 00:43:57.051
I remember telling my parents,
and I told close friends.

810
00:43:57.134 --> 00:44:01.513
They heard it and they very much agreed
with me that that was fucked up.

811
00:44:01.597 --> 00:44:04.391
I guess people didn't know what to do,
including my parents.

812
00:44:04.475 --> 00:44:06.393
Like, what do you tell your kid

813
00:44:06.477 --> 00:44:11.106
when someone says that we can't hire you
'cause of who you are?

814
00:44:11.190 --> 00:44:13.567
I talked to my mom
about everything going on,

815
00:44:13.651 --> 00:44:16.528
and she basically said,

816
00:44:16.612 --> 00:44:19.782
"I'm really surprised
that you even wanted to work there."

817
00:44:19.865 --> 00:44:22.117
She's like,
"I'm sure you were fine to clean up,

818
00:44:22.701 --> 00:44:26.121
but that store made it clear,
from my eyes,

819
00:44:26.205 --> 00:44:28.415
that they didn't want
people like us there."

820
00:44:28.499 --> 00:44:31.168
She's like,
"I honestly didn't expect anything else."

821
00:44:31.251 --> 00:44:35.839
"That store, everything about that store
screamed that we were an other."

822
00:44:35.923 --> 00:44:36.924
"We didn't fit there."

823
00:44:37.841 --> 00:44:39.593
[male voice]
<i>Walk into any upscale boutique,</i>

824
00:44:39.677 --> 00:44:43.764
<i>and you'll see salespeople who look like</i>
<i>they walked off the fashion pages.</i>

825
00:44:43.847 --> 00:44:47.476
<i>Retailers seek out workers</i>
<i>whose look they feel will sell clothes.</i>

826
00:44:47.559 --> 00:44:51.271
<i>But can maintaining that look</i>
<i>become a form of racial discrimination?</i>

827
00:44:51.355 --> 00:44:53.774
<i>That's what the firm</i>
<i>of Abercrombie & Fitch</i>

828
00:44:53.857 --> 00:44:55.025
<i>is being accused of.</i>

829
00:44:55.109 --> 00:44:58.904
The nine plaintiffs in this new suit
claim they were fired or not hired

830
00:44:58.987 --> 00:45:00.906
because they weren't white enough.

831
00:45:00.989 --> 00:45:02.950
When I did get scheduled,

832
00:45:03.033 --> 00:45:05.828
I would have to come in at closing time.

833
00:45:05.911 --> 00:45:11.083
I was one of the named plaintiffs
on the Abercrombie lawsuit.

834
00:45:11.166 --> 00:45:13.585
Joining me now
are two of the plaintiffs in this suit,

835
00:45:13.669 --> 00:45:15.963
Anthony Ocampo and Jennifer Lu.

836
00:45:16.046 --> 00:45:19.299
I am one of the people
that sued Abercrombie. [laughs]

837
00:45:19.383 --> 00:45:23.137
[Sheahan] We wanted to represent
the people that this had happened to

838
00:45:23.220 --> 00:45:27.891
and give them a voice and make sure
that Abercrombie was held accountable.

839
00:45:27.975 --> 00:45:29.727
All-American doesn't mean all-white.

840
00:45:29.810 --> 00:45:32.771
One of my friends, who's Mexican-American,
was working for MALDEF,

841
00:45:32.855 --> 00:45:35.441
the Mexican American Legal Defense
and Education Fund,

842
00:45:35.524 --> 00:45:37.651
and he was working for Tom Saenz,

843
00:45:37.735 --> 00:45:41.447
and it turns out
that Tom had heard other rumblings

844
00:45:41.530 --> 00:45:44.199
of people being discriminated
at Abercrombie.

845
00:45:46.076 --> 00:45:48.412
[Saenz]
In this case, I could go to the mall

846
00:45:48.495 --> 00:45:52.708
and verify what our client had told us,
and so I did that.

847
00:45:52.791 --> 00:45:55.210
I would go into the A&F store,

848
00:45:55.294 --> 00:45:58.422
and I would look at
who the retail workers were.

849
00:45:58.505 --> 00:46:00.716
And then I'd literally cross the hall

850
00:46:00.799 --> 00:46:03.218
and go to a similar retail establishment,

851
00:46:03.302 --> 00:46:05.179
whether it was Old Navy

852
00:46:05.262 --> 00:46:09.266
or Banana Republic or the Gap,

853
00:46:09.349 --> 00:46:11.602
and the contrast was just striking.

854
00:46:11.685 --> 00:46:13.103
In those other stores,

855
00:46:13.187 --> 00:46:16.774
you would see a workforce
that looked like Southern California,

856
00:46:16.857 --> 00:46:20.861
mostly young people of color
doing the retail work.

857
00:46:20.944 --> 00:46:22.196
At Abercrombie & Fitch,

858
00:46:22.279 --> 00:46:26.241
it was almost entirely
white retail workers.

859
00:46:26.325 --> 00:46:29.244
We're not talking about
a single individual who was denied a job,

860
00:46:29.328 --> 00:46:32.372
as terrible as that is
and as unlawful as that is.

861
00:46:32.456 --> 00:46:35.876
We're talking about practices
going on across the country

862
00:46:35.959 --> 00:46:39.713
at hundreds of stores
affecting thousands of students.

863
00:46:41.006 --> 00:46:45.719
It was actually difficult
to find folks who could be plaintiffs,

864
00:46:45.803 --> 00:46:48.806
and that's in part
because there were so few people of color

865
00:46:48.889 --> 00:46:51.350
who were employed by Abercrombie & Fitch.

866
00:46:51.433 --> 00:46:54.895
My younger sister text me, or called me.

867
00:46:54.978 --> 00:46:58.482
I don't think we were texting then.
I think it was way too expensive!

868
00:46:58.565 --> 00:46:59.983
But she called me and said,

869
00:47:00.067 --> 00:47:03.278
"I saw this thing on the Internet
about Abercrombie & Fitch

870
00:47:03.362 --> 00:47:05.531
in a racial discrimination lawsuit,"

871
00:47:05.614 --> 00:47:09.284
and she's like, "They definitely
racially discriminated against you!"

872
00:47:09.368 --> 00:47:11.370
[laughs] Um, "You should call them."

873
00:47:11.453 --> 00:47:16.750
I was like, "I wonder
if what happened to me was 'bad enough'."

874
00:47:16.834 --> 00:47:18.919
You know? If that's some-- Does it even--

875
00:47:19.002 --> 00:47:21.588
If I tell them,
would they just be like, "Just move on"?

876
00:47:21.672 --> 00:47:23.632
There was still that piece of,

877
00:47:23.715 --> 00:47:25.425
"It wasn't that bad,"

878
00:47:25.509 --> 00:47:28.679
um, where if you look at things
like racism

879
00:47:28.762 --> 00:47:31.223
or sexism or homophobia that…

880
00:47:31.849 --> 00:47:35.060
It does-- Things don't have to
look "that<i> </i>bad."

881
00:47:35.143 --> 00:47:37.062
Someone doesn't have to call you--

882
00:47:37.145 --> 00:47:40.858
Someone doesn't have to call me a nigger
in the middle of Abercrombie & Fitch

883
00:47:40.941 --> 00:47:43.610
for it to be "bad enough."

884
00:47:43.694 --> 00:47:48.615
Um, but, you know, 19-year-old Carla,
I'm thinking, "Well, I don't know."

885
00:47:48.699 --> 00:47:51.034
I've never seen racism that explicit.

886
00:47:51.118 --> 00:47:52.661
I was really pissed off.

887
00:47:52.744 --> 00:47:55.038
Like, I was enraged,
and it never went away.

888
00:47:55.122 --> 00:47:57.875
And so when I was invited
to be part of the lawsuit,

889
00:47:57.958 --> 00:47:59.042
I thought, "Oh, okay."

890
00:47:59.126 --> 00:48:04.131
"Here's an opportunity to…
to call Abercrombie on their bullshit

891
00:48:04.214 --> 00:48:06.800
of trying to say
they're an all-American brand,

892
00:48:06.884 --> 00:48:09.970
and yet the way they're maintaining
this image of all-American

893
00:48:10.053 --> 00:48:13.891
is to hire a bunch of white folks
and fire a bunch of people of color."

894
00:48:13.974 --> 00:48:17.644
[man 13] We just asked them, what was
their experience working for Abercrombie,

895
00:48:17.728 --> 00:48:20.022
attempting to apply
to work at Abercrombie,

896
00:48:20.105 --> 00:48:25.736
and themes started to emerge of this
strong, strong preference for white people

897
00:48:25.819 --> 00:48:28.989
over African Americans,
Latinos, Asian Americans,

898
00:48:29.072 --> 00:48:31.742
anybody who didn't fit
this particular look.

899
00:48:31.825 --> 00:48:36.371
I was sick of getting my schedule back
every week with lines through names.

900
00:48:36.455 --> 00:48:37.998
Essentially telling people

901
00:48:38.081 --> 00:48:39.958
they don't look good enough.

902
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,

903
00:48:43.921 --> 00:48:47.215
you know, lie to them
and say, "Oh, we don't have hours."

904
00:48:48.550 --> 00:48:50.719
When it's because
they weren't pretty enough.

905
00:48:51.470 --> 00:48:55.098
[Barrientos] Jahan talked to us
about what Abercrombie was saying.

906
00:48:55.182 --> 00:48:58.101
It wasn't that we were being
racially discriminated against.

907
00:48:58.185 --> 00:49:01.480
It was that we weren't good-looking enough
to work on the floor.

908
00:49:01.563 --> 00:49:03.899
We're just-- just ugly! [laughs]

909
00:49:03.982 --> 00:49:05.859
It was seriously laughable. We…

910
00:49:06.401 --> 00:49:09.363
When we got together, we were like,
"Are you kidding me? What a joke."

911
00:49:09.446 --> 00:49:12.449
I guess it's better that than saying,

912
00:49:12.532 --> 00:49:14.910
"We racially discriminate
against these people."

913
00:49:15.577 --> 00:49:18.622
[laughs] But it was a joke.
It was seriously a joke.

914
00:49:23.877 --> 00:49:27.255
[Sanchez] Abercrombie got sued
in a class-action lawsuit

915
00:49:27.339 --> 00:49:29.758
for putting brown and Black people
in the back.

916
00:49:36.014 --> 00:49:37.557
Whoo!

917
00:49:37.641 --> 00:49:42.104
Abercrombie & Fitch denied the allegations
but settled-- but settled the suit.

918
00:49:42.187 --> 00:49:45.941
Abercrombie really knew
that they had a lot to hide

919
00:49:46.024 --> 00:49:48.360
and offered them
a big settlement right away.

920
00:49:48.860 --> 00:49:53.865
[Berfield] Abercrombie & Fitch
was required to pay almost $50 million

921
00:49:55.784 --> 00:49:57.160
and to make some changes.

922
00:49:59.579 --> 00:50:02.541
Abercrombie agreed
to enter into a consent decree.

923
00:50:19.933 --> 00:50:25.731
[Berfield] So Abercrombie had to create
the position of Chief Diversity Officer.

924
00:50:27.315 --> 00:50:28.859
On one hand, like, great opportunity

925
00:50:28.942 --> 00:50:32.571
to take a company, you know,
that really needs you.

926
00:50:32.654 --> 00:50:34.156
[laughs]

927
00:50:34.239 --> 00:50:36.408
"Do they want you?" is the other question.

928
00:50:39.703 --> 00:50:43.540
I got a call from a search firm.
"Listen, there's an opportunity in Ohio."

929
00:50:43.623 --> 00:50:46.460
"It's a brand called A&F."
I said, "I don't know what that is."

930
00:50:46.543 --> 00:50:48.754
So I went to the mall
and tried to figure it out.

931
00:50:48.837 --> 00:50:52.424
I walked around, I shopped and I looked,
and I said, "Oh. It's different."

932
00:50:55.802 --> 00:50:57.554
I began to figure out what it was about,

933
00:50:57.637 --> 00:50:59.765
which was figuring out
how to reinvent a brand

934
00:50:59.848 --> 00:51:04.269
from the perspective of D&I,
which at the time was not a function.

935
00:51:04.352 --> 00:51:07.064
There was not an office, not a discipline.
There was no muscle.

936
00:51:07.147 --> 00:51:08.982
I had to figure out
how to put it all together.

937
00:51:09.066 --> 00:51:11.234
I said,
"Well, you've been praying to God."

938
00:51:11.318 --> 00:51:12.986
"You've been saying
you need something big."

939
00:51:13.070 --> 00:51:15.864
"I guess he's telling you right now,
this is probably it."

940
00:51:17.866 --> 00:51:20.619
So I asked about
the reporting relationship,

941
00:51:20.702 --> 00:51:22.913
which was the biggest thing
for me to figure out,

942
00:51:22.996 --> 00:51:25.707
and I knew that it would be
to the CEO and chairman.

943
00:51:28.293 --> 00:51:30.337
The work there had inherent challenges.

944
00:51:30.420 --> 00:51:33.090
I had to figure out
how to navigate a lot of them.

945
00:51:33.173 --> 00:51:35.008
Some of the challenges were around,

946
00:51:35.092 --> 00:51:40.055
"How do you create a brand
with fewer contradictions?"

947
00:51:49.189 --> 00:51:52.192
We approach people every day
with our inclusive mindset

948
00:51:52.275 --> 00:51:53.860
that embraces our diversity.

949
00:51:53.944 --> 00:51:56.404
-Come work with me in New York.
-Arizona.

950
00:51:56.488 --> 00:51:57.531
-Florida.
-Belgium.

951
00:51:57.614 --> 00:51:58.824
-Spain.
-Hong Kong.

952
00:51:58.907 --> 00:52:00.158
-Germany.
-[in unison] The UK.

953
00:52:04.079 --> 00:52:07.666
Someone like myself going into
those circumstances and situations,

954
00:52:07.749 --> 00:52:08.834
you understand, like,

955
00:52:09.835 --> 00:52:12.629
maybe this is a form of "tokenism."

956
00:52:13.213 --> 00:52:19.261
Now, you could either say,
"No way am I going to be a part of that,"

957
00:52:19.344 --> 00:52:23.598
or you can look at it as an opportunity

958
00:52:23.682 --> 00:52:26.977
and then open that door even wider
for people like yourself

959
00:52:27.060 --> 00:52:31.815
and others who haven't necessarily had
that sort of access or opportunity.

960
00:52:32.482 --> 00:52:35.485
[Sanchez] I was a recruiter for a couple
years, developing relationships

961
00:52:35.569 --> 00:52:38.613
on historically Black colleges
and universities.

962
00:52:39.114 --> 00:52:42.617
As a brown man
who very much appears to be white,

963
00:52:42.701 --> 00:52:44.411
wearing all Abercrombie & Fitch,

964
00:52:44.494 --> 00:52:48.373
'cause that's what
we're required to do on campus, you're--

965
00:52:48.456 --> 00:52:52.377
At first, you're getting some dirty looks,
and rightfully so.

966
00:52:52.460 --> 00:52:53.795
When I walked in,

967
00:52:54.963 --> 00:52:57.340
I think 90% of their population was white.

968
00:52:57.924 --> 00:52:59.384
By year five or six,

969
00:52:59.467 --> 00:53:03.221
population went above 53% non-white.

970
00:53:05.891 --> 00:53:10.187
When I transitioned over
to my role in Diversity & Inclusion,

971
00:53:10.770 --> 00:53:16.109
my first meeting
where I was with the store's leadership,

972
00:53:16.193 --> 00:53:19.654
and they were talking about
what we wanted in the stores,

973
00:53:20.238 --> 00:53:25.076
the free, sort of, free flow
of how we talked about beauty

974
00:53:25.160 --> 00:53:27.454
and who was good-looking,
who was not good-looking,

975
00:53:27.537 --> 00:53:29.331
or that person's nose was this or that,

976
00:53:29.414 --> 00:53:32.417
I was like, "I can't believe
we literally talk about people

977
00:53:32.500 --> 00:53:35.212
and dissect people's features like this."

978
00:53:35.295 --> 00:53:39.341
Or, like, it would be written
in a, you know, like, the interview,

979
00:53:39.424 --> 00:53:41.009
like, "Nope," like…

980
00:53:41.092 --> 00:53:44.387
It was just-- I couldn't believe it,
to be honest with you. I was shocked.

981
00:53:44.971 --> 00:53:47.057
[Tkacik] Brand reps
were no longer called "brand reps."

982
00:53:47.140 --> 00:53:50.810
They were called either "impact,"
and that meant that you went to the back,

983
00:53:50.894 --> 00:53:54.314
or "model,"
and that meant you could be up front.

984
00:53:54.397 --> 00:53:56.483
I think that, like, the idea was that

985
00:53:56.566 --> 00:54:00.654
calling their minimum wage
retail employees "models,"

986
00:54:00.737 --> 00:54:03.949
you know, Abercrombie could
get away with anything

987
00:54:04.032 --> 00:54:06.243
that a modeling agency
could get away with.

988
00:54:06.326 --> 00:54:10.830
They never put it in words that they were
to be good-looking post-consent decree,

989
00:54:10.914 --> 00:54:15.418
and I think they were more careful
about not necessarily using that word,

990
00:54:15.502 --> 00:54:17.045
but they took care of it

991
00:54:17.128 --> 00:54:20.882
when they got it approved with
the consent decree to call them models.

992
00:54:21.383 --> 00:54:25.220
You took care of it.
Like, nothin' changed as far as that went.

993
00:54:25.303 --> 00:54:28.014
[producer] So, what if an ugly person
applied to be a model?

994
00:54:28.098 --> 00:54:28.974
They interviewed.

995
00:54:30.141 --> 00:54:33.520
They went through the same interview
process that the other folks went through.

996
00:54:34.020 --> 00:54:36.231
[producer] But does that mean
they had just as little shot

997
00:54:36.314 --> 00:54:38.316
pre- and post-consent decree
of getting a job?

998
00:54:38.400 --> 00:54:39.234
Oh yeah.

999
00:54:39.943 --> 00:54:40.777
Yeah.

1000
00:54:42.404 --> 00:54:46.199
[Tkacik] The consent decree did not force
leadership to change at all.

1001
00:54:46.283 --> 00:54:49.703
The entire leadership structure
remained in place.

1002
00:54:49.786 --> 00:54:53.581
At that point, Jeffries still had
almost 10% of the stock.

1003
00:54:53.665 --> 00:54:56.876
Um, so nothing, nothing changed at all.

1004
00:54:58.378 --> 00:55:01.006
A lot of these things
come from the top down.

1005
00:55:02.048 --> 00:55:04.718
Between Jeffries and Bruce Weber,

1006
00:55:04.801 --> 00:55:08.346
we have some really troubling behavior.

1007
00:55:15.979 --> 00:55:18.481
Bruce Weber was able
to take advantage of his power more

1008
00:55:18.565 --> 00:55:20.817
because he was so infamous
and so out there.

1009
00:55:20.900 --> 00:55:22.736
It was very well known with Bruce

1010
00:55:22.819 --> 00:55:24.779
that he… liked…

1011
00:55:26.072 --> 00:55:26.990
young men.

1012
00:55:27.490 --> 00:55:30.785
He's gonna invite you over
and try his "good touch, bad touch" thing.

1013
00:55:30.869 --> 00:55:31.786
You would

1014
00:55:32.871 --> 00:55:34.164
put your hand on your chest,

1015
00:55:35.040 --> 00:55:39.294
and he'd put his hand on your hand,
kind of like talking to relax.

1016
00:55:39.377 --> 00:55:42.922
And then it was,
"I'm gonna lower your hand."

1017
00:55:43.006 --> 00:55:45.300
"Tell me when to stop."

1018
00:55:45.383 --> 00:55:47.218
My hand didn't move. [laughs]

1019
00:55:47.302 --> 00:55:48.511
So he's like-- he's like,

1020
00:55:48.595 --> 00:55:51.014
"No, we're gonna lower your hand,
and then when I--"

1021
00:55:51.097 --> 00:55:53.975
And I'm like, "No, that's…
We're just… We're good."

1022
00:55:54.059 --> 00:55:57.562
There was a guy
that would get a call from Bruce.

1023
00:55:57.645 --> 00:55:59.898
He would get invited
to come over for dinner.

1024
00:56:00.648 --> 00:56:03.360
Like, "Hey, you should come over.
I'm gonna have dinner."

1025
00:56:03.443 --> 00:56:05.195
"Play with my dogs." Blah, blah, blah.

1026
00:56:05.278 --> 00:56:08.031
Then they'd go over,
and I would not see them the next day.

1027
00:56:08.531 --> 00:56:11.284
It was day three, and all of a sudden,
like, the phone rings,

1028
00:56:11.368 --> 00:56:14.913
and I'm like, "Oh, I know what that is."

1029
00:56:14.996 --> 00:56:20.043
"Hey, Bobby. So I'm sending you a car
to come over for dinner."

1030
00:56:20.126 --> 00:56:24.672
And at this moment, the moment is like,
I'm gonna go home or not.

1031
00:56:24.756 --> 00:56:27.008
"Yeah, so I'm not gonna be able
to make it."

1032
00:56:27.092 --> 00:56:30.053
And he's like, "What? No, you have
to come. It's great for your career."

1033
00:56:30.136 --> 00:56:33.515
So I'm like, "No, I'm cool, Bruce,
but thank you very much."

1034
00:56:33.598 --> 00:56:36.434
And all of a sudden,
my phone rings in probably one minute.

1035
00:56:36.518 --> 00:56:39.979
Let's say less than two minutes,
it rang again. I was like, "What?"

1036
00:56:40.063 --> 00:56:42.190
And I pick it up,
and he's like, "Hey, Bobby."

1037
00:56:42.273 --> 00:56:45.568
"Unfortunately, you're gonna be cut,
and your flight's ready."

1038
00:56:45.652 --> 00:56:49.739
"And your bags… Get your bags ready.
And then you have a flight tonight."

1039
00:56:49.823 --> 00:56:52.575
It was just like,
in that instant, I was done.

1040
00:56:54.786 --> 00:56:56.538
[Daharsh] And then you had
Michael Jeffries.

1041
00:56:57.414 --> 00:57:01.126
And it was like he was just there
to have fun on the shoots.

1042
00:57:02.335 --> 00:57:04.712
He-- he very clearly
was into young men too.

1043
00:57:05.296 --> 00:57:08.049
But he was just so weird that--
Who knows what the fuck--

1044
00:57:08.133 --> 00:57:10.218
I don't know what that dude was into.

1045
00:57:10.301 --> 00:57:12.554
It seemed like
they were always implementing,

1046
00:57:13.054 --> 00:57:15.014
like, a new step to the process.

1047
00:57:15.974 --> 00:57:20.979
One of which was
you had to go into, like, this tent

1048
00:57:21.062 --> 00:57:22.564
that was closed off,

1049
00:57:22.647 --> 00:57:26.401
and it was just Bruce, Bruce Weber,
and Michael Jeffries in there.

1050
00:57:27.110 --> 00:57:32.449
Literally, it was an interview for them
to see if they liked your personality,

1051
00:57:32.532 --> 00:57:34.784
who you were,
and what you brought to the table.

1052
00:57:36.077 --> 00:57:40.707
[Berfield] When he ran Abercrombie,
he always sold clothes to women and girls,

1053
00:57:40.790 --> 00:57:44.294
but what I think most people saw

1054
00:57:44.377 --> 00:57:46.421
and, you know, responded to

1055
00:57:46.504 --> 00:57:48.882
was the male image and the male form.

1056
00:57:49.841 --> 00:57:52.594
[Tkacik] I don't even think Mike realized

1057
00:57:52.677 --> 00:57:55.472
that he was also a gay icon.

1058
00:57:56.681 --> 00:58:00.685
It was known or presumed that he was gay,

1059
00:58:01.269 --> 00:58:03.938
but he was very secretive
about his personal life.

1060
00:58:06.191 --> 00:58:08.651
In the early 2000s,

1061
00:58:08.735 --> 00:58:12.197
Mike Jeffries was
still very much closeted.

1062
00:58:13.448 --> 00:58:16.534
[Berfield] Jeffries had been married,
had a son.

1063
00:58:16.618 --> 00:58:18.620
[Tkacik] His wife was mostly
out of the picture,

1064
00:58:18.703 --> 00:58:21.831
and eventually
his life partner, Matthew Smith,

1065
00:58:21.915 --> 00:58:24.501
sort of came on within the company.

1066
00:58:24.584 --> 00:58:29.589
There's a lot that was probably going on
internally with Mike Jeffries

1067
00:58:29.672 --> 00:58:33.009
that very few people
would have been privy to.

1068
00:58:34.385 --> 00:58:38.097
[Abadsidis] He was out of control.
I mean, it was really out of control.

1069
00:58:38.181 --> 00:58:41.893
It was like he had
a bunch of terrible plastic surgeries.

1070
00:58:42.644 --> 00:58:44.062
He wanted to be young.

1071
00:58:44.729 --> 00:58:47.440
He was chasing youth, too, you know?
It's an old story.

1072
00:58:49.526 --> 00:58:52.612
I was fascinated by Mike.
I was fascinated by the company.

1073
00:58:52.695 --> 00:58:59.410
And Mike was just this strange,
bizarre, interesting man.

1074
00:59:00.203 --> 00:59:02.622
I desperately wanted
to write about the company.

1075
00:59:02.705 --> 00:59:04.958
I desperately wanted
to get to their headquarters.

1076
00:59:05.041 --> 00:59:06.042
They called it Campus.

1077
00:59:10.129 --> 00:59:13.967
Then one day, I get a call from an editor
at <i>The New York Times Magazine,</i>

1078
00:59:14.050 --> 00:59:15.969
where I had been writing for a few years,

1079
00:59:16.052 --> 00:59:19.472
and they say, "Do you wanna do a story
about Abercrombie & Fitch?"

1080
00:59:20.056 --> 00:59:23.393
I said, "Absolutely, I'd like to do
this story. How did you get access?"

1081
00:59:23.476 --> 00:59:24.852
They said, "They invited us."

1082
00:59:25.603 --> 00:59:26.854
It's still a question to me

1083
00:59:26.938 --> 00:59:29.274
about why Mike had rejected so many offers

1084
00:59:29.357 --> 00:59:32.735
to write about his brand,
but suddenly I was there.

1085
00:59:34.821 --> 00:59:38.324
He talked about it.
He said, "This is a diva-free zone."

1086
00:59:38.825 --> 00:59:40.201
In a way, <i>he </i>was the diva.

1087
00:59:40.285 --> 00:59:42.787
He was making all of the decisions.

1088
00:59:43.454 --> 00:59:45.873
They had model stores on the campus.

1089
00:59:45.957 --> 00:59:47.292
I watched him walk through

1090
00:59:47.375 --> 00:59:51.796
and obsessively look at how the jeans fell
on every mannequin.

1091
00:59:53.047 --> 00:59:54.507
Going through the store with him

1092
00:59:54.591 --> 01:00:00.930
was revealing of his very clear,
sort of traditional sense

1093
01:00:01.014 --> 01:00:03.016
of masculinity and femininity.

1094
01:00:03.099 --> 01:00:06.311
Saying things like, "We need
to make this dude look more like a dude."

1095
01:00:06.394 --> 01:00:10.064
Uh, for the mannequin,
"We don't want her to look too butch."

1096
01:00:10.148 --> 01:00:11.608
That's exactly what he said.

1097
01:00:12.150 --> 01:00:17.655
He was going through
the racks of Abercrombie girls.

1098
01:00:17.739 --> 01:00:19.782
He picked up a pair of corduroys

1099
01:00:19.866 --> 01:00:22.785
that, I guess to him,
seemed too masculine.

1100
01:00:22.869 --> 01:00:25.913
He said, "Who the fuck
are you designing for?"

1101
01:00:25.997 --> 01:00:27.749
"Dykes on trikes?"

1102
01:00:27.832 --> 01:00:33.296
That language had, um…
went a little beyond, um…

1103
01:00:33.379 --> 01:00:36.007
what was usually implicit,
and became explicit,

1104
01:00:36.090 --> 01:00:40.345
which is that we're not just
designing for men and women,

1105
01:00:40.428 --> 01:00:41.346
girls and boys.

1106
01:00:41.429 --> 01:00:44.932
We're designing
for sexy women and sexy men,

1107
01:00:45.016 --> 01:00:47.685
and sexy girls and sexy boys,

1108
01:00:47.769 --> 01:00:49.771
and sexy meant hetero sexy,

1109
01:00:49.854 --> 01:00:52.231
not "dykes."

1110
01:00:52.315 --> 01:00:55.526
I was really interested
in psychoanalyzing him. [laughs]

1111
01:00:55.610 --> 01:00:58.529
Like, I mean, I wanted to figure out

1112
01:00:59.697 --> 01:01:00.865
who this guy was.

1113
01:01:01.741 --> 01:01:04.535
So I asked him about
all the high-profile controversies,

1114
01:01:04.619 --> 01:01:05.995
the lawsuits,

1115
01:01:06.579 --> 01:01:09.207
and he got incredibly defensive.

1116
01:01:09.290 --> 01:01:11.793
And he ended up saying things that were,

1117
01:01:11.876 --> 01:01:14.379
like, too… too honest.

1118
01:01:14.462 --> 01:01:16.089
[no audio]

1119
01:01:16.172 --> 01:01:19.092
[Denizet-Lewis] He said,
"Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

1120
01:01:19.175 --> 01:01:22.136
He said,
"Not everyone can wear our clothes."

1121
01:01:22.220 --> 01:01:24.806
"I don't want everyone,"
essentially, "wearing our clothes."

1122
01:01:24.889 --> 01:01:27.558
He talked about going after the cool kids.

1123
01:01:27.642 --> 01:01:31.771
He talked about, and again,
this word, the all-American, um, cool kid.

1124
01:01:31.854 --> 01:01:35.483
He sort of fetishized
the all-American boy.

1125
01:01:35.983 --> 01:01:38.736
I mean,
he's not the only person in fashion

1126
01:01:38.820 --> 01:01:41.698
who believed these things,

1127
01:01:41.781 --> 01:01:45.952
but he was the only person,
seemingly, who would say that out loud.

1128
01:01:46.035 --> 01:01:49.455
Two days later,
when I left Ohio, I got an email

1129
01:01:49.539 --> 01:01:53.209
that they were pulling their participation
from the story.

1130
01:01:53.292 --> 01:01:56.587
Which meant, for me, the story was dead
for <i>The New York Times Magazine.</i>

1131
01:01:56.671 --> 01:01:58.673
And I wrote the piece for <i>Salon.</i>

1132
01:01:59.757 --> 01:02:03.010
You know, the piece, when it came out,
got a little bit of attention

1133
01:02:03.094 --> 01:02:08.224
as a profile of this quirky,
highly successful fashion CEO.

1134
01:02:08.307 --> 01:02:10.101
So, in 2006,

1135
01:02:10.184 --> 01:02:13.438
to openly say that
"We're an exclusionary brand"

1136
01:02:13.521 --> 01:02:17.483
apparently was not out of the realm
of things that people would say.

1137
01:02:17.567 --> 01:02:20.027
What makes Abercrombie unique for me

1138
01:02:20.111 --> 01:02:22.488
is that they were unapologetic about it.

1139
01:02:22.572 --> 01:02:24.198
They really went out there.

1140
01:02:24.282 --> 01:02:25.825
They hired certain people.

1141
01:02:25.908 --> 01:02:29.412
They wanted a certain look.
The ads looked a certain way.

1142
01:02:29.495 --> 01:02:31.080
And there wasn't this idea

1143
01:02:31.164 --> 01:02:34.625
that we need to come to the table
around diversity and inclusion

1144
01:02:34.709 --> 01:02:37.712
and make sure
that everyone feels represented.

1145
01:02:37.795 --> 01:02:39.881
They doubled down on being exclusionary.

1146
01:02:39.964 --> 01:02:43.092
They doubled down on saying,
"This is a lifestyle that we're selling."

1147
01:02:43.176 --> 01:02:48.014
"We want our store representatives
to look like the models in our ads."

1148
01:02:48.097 --> 01:02:51.517
"We want this lifestyle
to be associated with us."

1149
01:02:51.601 --> 01:02:56.355
"We're not dissociating
from being discriminating in our taste,

1150
01:02:56.439 --> 01:02:57.356
in our aesthetics."

1151
01:03:01.778 --> 01:03:04.697
One of the reasons
that I didn't wear Abercrombie,

1152
01:03:04.781 --> 01:03:07.200
besides it being incredibly expensive,

1153
01:03:07.283 --> 01:03:09.076
was because I-- I literally couldn't.

1154
01:03:09.160 --> 01:03:10.995
I was the fat, gay, poor kid.

1155
01:03:11.078 --> 01:03:13.539
Pretty much, like, the bullying trifecta.

1156
01:03:13.623 --> 01:03:17.585
So one night I was up late,
and I was just scrolling the Internet.

1157
01:03:17.668 --> 01:03:19.629
The Internet
wasn't as impressive back then.

1158
01:03:19.712 --> 01:03:22.381
It was mostly news.
And I came across this article.

1159
01:03:22.465 --> 01:03:24.842
It was about Mike Jeffries.
I had never heard of him.

1160
01:03:24.926 --> 01:03:26.886
And I read this quote. It says,

1161
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."

1162
01:03:32.058 --> 01:03:34.936
"Candidly, we go after the cool kids."

1163
01:03:35.019 --> 01:03:38.981
"We go after the attractive,
all-American kid with a lot of friends."

1164
01:03:39.065 --> 01:03:40.483
"Are we exclusionary?"

1165
01:03:41.192 --> 01:03:42.485
"Absolutely."

1166
01:03:42.568 --> 01:03:45.530
I found out
that it was actually seven years old.

1167
01:03:45.613 --> 01:03:48.157
That this man had said this
seven years ago,

1168
01:03:48.241 --> 01:03:49.742
and no one did anything about it.

1169
01:03:50.576 --> 01:03:53.996
Someone who had so much power.
Right? Because that's the thing.

1170
01:03:54.080 --> 01:03:56.666
He wasn't just
the CEO of a clothing company.

1171
01:03:57.166 --> 01:03:58.668
He was a creator of cool.

1172
01:04:00.586 --> 01:04:04.215
And so I start this petition
asking Abercrombie & Fitch to apologize

1173
01:04:04.298 --> 01:04:06.801
and to start making plus sizes.

1174
01:04:07.677 --> 01:04:10.680
And eventually, I create a press list,
200 names on it,

1175
01:04:10.763 --> 01:04:13.850
and I send this press release out
to hundreds of people.

1176
01:04:14.350 --> 01:04:15.434
And I go to sleep.

1177
01:04:16.185 --> 01:04:18.145
An interview from, get this, 2006

1178
01:04:18.229 --> 01:04:21.983
with Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries
has gone viral.

1179
01:04:22.483 --> 01:04:25.653
[reporter 1] <i>If you're looking for</i>
<i>a women's extra-large blouse,</i>

1180
01:04:25.736 --> 01:04:26.612
<i>you're out of luck.</i>

1181
01:04:26.696 --> 01:04:29.949
<i>The trendy retailer CEO</i>
<i>doesn't want your business.</i>

1182
01:04:30.032 --> 01:04:31.367
[reporter 2] He's crossing a line.

1183
01:04:31.450 --> 01:04:33.661
He's crossed the line,
like, a billion times.

1184
01:04:33.744 --> 01:04:35.454
Stop shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch.

1185
01:04:35.538 --> 01:04:37.498
They actually said, "Fat chicks."

1186
01:04:38.374 --> 01:04:41.377
[Tkacik] <i>It shows up on Twitter,</i>
<i>and suddenly it goes viral,</i>

1187
01:04:41.460 --> 01:04:45.715
<i>and there's this huge campaign</i>
<i>to oust Mike Jeffries.</i>

1188
01:04:46.340 --> 01:04:48.175
Bitch! Your ass would do some good

1189
01:04:48.259 --> 01:04:50.803
if Kim Kardashian could squeeze
her big butt into your clothes.

1190
01:04:50.887 --> 01:04:53.973
This guy is not attractive.
He's an old hag.

1191
01:04:54.056 --> 01:04:56.475
Abercrombie & Fitch
is one of the most racist places

1192
01:04:56.559 --> 01:04:57.602
I've ever been to.

1193
01:04:57.685 --> 01:04:59.478
They suck inside and out.

1194
01:04:59.562 --> 01:05:01.647
And their clothes are overpriced.

1195
01:05:01.731 --> 01:05:04.817
Regardless of whether
your T-shirts fit these tits,

1196
01:05:05.610 --> 01:05:07.194
I'm not gonna shop in your store.

1197
01:05:07.278 --> 01:05:09.697
[reporter 3] He says that if companies
try to target all sizes,

1198
01:05:09.780 --> 01:05:10.740
they end up in trouble,

1199
01:05:10.823 --> 01:05:13.159
and if you don't alienate anyone,
you don't excite anyone.

1200
01:05:13.659 --> 01:05:16.037
-Let's take a look at him again.
-[both laughing]

1201
01:05:17.455 --> 01:05:21.709
[girl] If you're judging someone on
how cool they are just by looking at them,

1202
01:05:21.792 --> 01:05:24.003
and if you're hiring
only good-looking people,

1203
01:05:24.086 --> 01:05:25.630
how about hiring good workers?

1204
01:05:26.255 --> 01:05:29.133
[Denizet-Lewis] I interviewed a girl
who had led one of the boycotts,

1205
01:05:29.216 --> 01:05:33.304
and she said, "Abercrombie has
the biggest impact on people my age."

1206
01:05:33.387 --> 01:05:36.807
Girls think that
they need to be incredibly thin.

1207
01:05:36.891 --> 01:05:40.770
Boys think they need to be
this-- this sort of jacked image

1208
01:05:40.853 --> 01:05:44.273
that they see when they walk in the stores
and on their advertisements.

1209
01:05:44.357 --> 01:05:47.610
She said to me that
there was no brand for her and her friends

1210
01:05:47.693 --> 01:05:49.195
that was more influential.

1211
01:05:49.278 --> 01:05:51.489
In high school, I suffered with anorexia,

1212
01:05:51.572 --> 01:05:54.909
and so I knew
just how harmful that words like that

1213
01:05:54.992 --> 01:05:57.828
and rhetoric like that could be
on the psyche of young people.

1214
01:05:57.912 --> 01:06:00.665
And that's who
they were talking to, right?

1215
01:06:00.748 --> 01:06:02.750
That's who their consumers were.

1216
01:06:02.833 --> 01:06:06.045
They were telling young people
that if they didn't look a certain way,

1217
01:06:06.128 --> 01:06:08.172
if they weren't a certain type of person,

1218
01:06:08.255 --> 01:06:10.466
that they didn't belong in their clothing.

1219
01:06:10.549 --> 01:06:13.511
This was weeks and weeks and weeks

1220
01:06:13.594 --> 01:06:15.972
that people were talking about this,
covering this.

1221
01:06:16.055 --> 01:06:18.474
That's when we get the call
from Abercrombie & Fitch

1222
01:06:18.557 --> 01:06:21.602
saying, like,
"Hey, do you wanna come to Ohio

1223
01:06:21.686 --> 01:06:23.771
and, you know, help us out?"

1224
01:06:23.854 --> 01:06:25.648
"Help us see if we can work past this."

1225
01:06:25.731 --> 01:06:28.234
"See if we can
come to some kind of agreement."

1226
01:06:28.317 --> 01:06:32.488
It's myself, the CEO of
the National Eating Disorders Association,

1227
01:06:32.571 --> 01:06:34.323
a campaigner from Change.org,

1228
01:06:34.407 --> 01:06:37.535
and two other
sort of eating disorders professionals.

1229
01:06:37.618 --> 01:06:42.415
And I went on to talk to them
about not just size-based discrimination,

1230
01:06:42.498 --> 01:06:43.708
why discrimination is bad.

1231
01:06:43.791 --> 01:06:48.170
I talked to them about why it was
actually just a stupid business decision.

1232
01:06:48.254 --> 01:06:52.842
When 60% of your consumer base
is wearing these plus sizes,

1233
01:06:52.925 --> 01:06:54.510
why aren't you embracing them?

1234
01:06:55.011 --> 01:06:56.595
[O'Keefe] And then the team comes in,

1235
01:06:56.679 --> 01:07:00.725
and they're smiling,
and they're bubbly, and they're white,

1236
01:07:00.808 --> 01:07:02.268
except for one person,

1237
01:07:02.351 --> 01:07:04.937
the Chief Diversity Officer.

1238
01:07:05.021 --> 01:07:06.564
Of course, he was a Black man.

1239
01:07:06.647 --> 01:07:08.733
[producer] "We go after the cool kids."

1240
01:07:09.316 --> 01:07:11.777
What did you think when Mike said that?

1241
01:07:12.486 --> 01:07:13.863
Um…

1242
01:07:13.946 --> 01:07:15.865
I have to respectfully decline on that.

1243
01:07:15.948 --> 01:07:20.995
You-- you would not be wrong
about how you think I felt about that.

1244
01:07:21.078 --> 01:07:22.038
I mean…

1245
01:07:22.121 --> 01:07:25.166
So we're sitting at this board table,
this long boardroom table,

1246
01:07:25.249 --> 01:07:29.211
and I say, "Wait a minute.
Where's Mike? Where's Mike Jeffries?"

1247
01:07:29.295 --> 01:07:32.006
Mike Jeffries did not show up
to the meeting.

1248
01:07:32.798 --> 01:07:37.595
And so I start taking out stacks
of our 2,000 pages of petitions.

1249
01:07:37.678 --> 01:07:39.847
He had a box of stuff.
Like, what's the box for?

1250
01:07:40.347 --> 01:07:44.852
And I plop them down
in front of each executive dramatically,

1251
01:07:44.935 --> 01:07:45.853
really dramatically.

1252
01:07:45.936 --> 01:07:46.937
And I said…

1253
01:07:48.230 --> 01:07:51.150
"Each one of these piles of petitions

1254
01:07:51.233 --> 01:07:53.611
represents thousands of people

1255
01:07:53.694 --> 01:07:56.489
who are against
what you are doing as a brand."

1256
01:07:56.572 --> 01:07:59.408
Their Chief Diversity Officer
looked pretty offended.

1257
01:07:59.492 --> 01:08:00.951
He pulled out this little book.

1258
01:08:01.035 --> 01:08:05.831
He tried to explain to me how, actually,
they were an incredibly diverse company,

1259
01:08:05.915 --> 01:08:08.959
and all of the great things
that they had done for diversity

1260
01:08:09.043 --> 01:08:11.045
in their stores since he had come on.

1261
01:08:11.128 --> 01:08:12.463
And so he hands me this book,

1262
01:08:12.546 --> 01:08:15.382
and I sort of look at it,
and I throw it back at him.

1263
01:08:15.466 --> 01:08:17.426
"So this means nothing.
Look in this room."

1264
01:08:17.510 --> 01:08:19.303
"You're the only person of color here."

1265
01:08:19.386 --> 01:08:23.474
The higher up you go,
the older it gets and the whiter it gets.

1266
01:08:23.557 --> 01:08:25.935
These people were there very early on.

1267
01:08:26.018 --> 01:08:29.563
They're telling you who looks Abercrombie.

1268
01:08:31.190 --> 01:08:34.276
[Givhan] Yeah, you've got
the numbers at the store level,

1269
01:08:34.360 --> 01:08:37.571
but what about
at the vice president level,

1270
01:08:37.655 --> 01:08:41.951
and what about the people
who sit on your board of directors?

1271
01:08:42.034 --> 01:08:44.787
That becomes a question of the system,

1272
01:08:44.870 --> 01:08:48.165
and that becomes one
that's much more challenging.

1273
01:08:48.249 --> 01:08:50.668
It's not something that can be fixed

1274
01:08:50.751 --> 01:08:54.463
with a hiring binge, you know,
over the course of a year.

1275
01:08:54.547 --> 01:08:57.007
Upper management stayed white.

1276
01:08:57.091 --> 01:09:00.177
Most of the concerns in the decree
were from the store side.

1277
01:09:00.261 --> 01:09:03.514
[Corley] I mean, again,
they were 90% of your employee population.

1278
01:09:03.597 --> 01:09:05.724
So that was largely what we focused on.

1279
01:09:06.684 --> 01:09:12.148
You could call it a-- a glass ceiling
for all people of color.

1280
01:09:12.231 --> 01:09:16.402
You go to the office,
you see the new crop of regional managers,

1281
01:09:16.485 --> 01:09:18.696
was like, "Anybody? Anybody?"

1282
01:09:18.779 --> 01:09:19.780
"Okay, no."

1283
01:09:20.364 --> 01:09:24.118
I would be doing all the managers of color
that I worked with over the years

1284
01:09:24.201 --> 01:09:27.121
that I truly appreciated a disservice

1285
01:09:27.204 --> 01:09:28.956
if I didn't at least say that

1286
01:09:29.832 --> 01:09:32.334
it wasn't <i>not </i>racist.

1287
01:09:33.669 --> 01:09:35.379
[producer laughs] "It wasn't not racist"!

1288
01:09:35.462 --> 01:09:36.338
[both laugh]

1289
01:09:36.422 --> 01:09:41.719
I think the real evidence
of the leadership commitment came to light

1290
01:09:41.802 --> 01:09:43.387
when the consent decree ended.

1291
01:09:43.470 --> 01:09:47.766
They definitely improved
a great deal on the surface.

1292
01:09:47.850 --> 01:09:51.604
But they didn't get anywhere close
to what they sort of promised they would,

1293
01:09:51.687 --> 01:09:54.982
and none of this was binding,
and that's the-- that's the big problem.

1294
01:10:07.745 --> 01:10:09.413
[Spencer] When the consent decree ended,

1295
01:10:09.496 --> 01:10:12.958
you started to see
what you call "the fatigue."

1296
01:10:13.042 --> 01:10:15.127
Right? People were like… [sighs]

1297
01:10:15.628 --> 01:10:17.546
Then you start experiencing
the resistance.

1298
01:10:17.630 --> 01:10:19.131
"Do we really have to do this?"

1299
01:10:19.215 --> 01:10:22.176
"Do we really need to allocate
this much money to that?" Right?

1300
01:10:22.259 --> 01:10:23.219
And so…

1301
01:10:24.511 --> 01:10:26.013
were we really committed?

1302
01:10:26.680 --> 01:10:27.640
Or not?

1303
01:10:27.723 --> 01:10:29.850
I've been in Todd's seat.

1304
01:10:29.934 --> 01:10:31.977
That is an incredibly tough place to be

1305
01:10:32.061 --> 01:10:35.439
that we put marginalized people in
all the time.

1306
01:10:35.522 --> 01:10:38.234
And we say, "Okay, fix all the problems."

1307
01:10:38.317 --> 01:10:42.780
He was set up to fail,
and I think that's why he ultimately left.

1308
01:10:43.739 --> 01:10:47.576
Well, I've always been cautious
about how I talk about my experience

1309
01:10:47.660 --> 01:10:48.911
'cause when I left,

1310
01:10:48.994 --> 01:10:52.665
I mean, uh, the place doesn't look
like it did when I inherited it.

1311
01:10:52.748 --> 01:10:54.041
And if nothing else,

1312
01:10:54.792 --> 01:10:56.252
that, to me, is success.

1313
01:11:01.048 --> 01:11:02.049
Okay.

1314
01:11:07.846 --> 01:11:09.390
I'm Samantha Elauf.

1315
01:11:10.057 --> 01:11:12.476
I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

1316
01:11:12.977 --> 01:11:16.021
So I was applying for Abercrombie & Fitch.

1317
01:11:16.105 --> 01:11:18.899
There was one question that they asked,
which is funny now,

1318
01:11:18.983 --> 01:11:20.985
but as a minority, it stood out to me,

1319
01:11:21.068 --> 01:11:23.737
and it was,
"What does diversity mean to you?"

1320
01:11:24.321 --> 01:11:27.157
So I was like,
"Okay, I'll fit in perfect."

1321
01:11:27.241 --> 01:11:29.451
At the interview,
I was also wearing jeans.

1322
01:11:29.535 --> 01:11:31.287
I think I was wearing a white basic,

1323
01:11:31.370 --> 01:11:34.373
and I was wearing a black scarf,
traditionally worn.

1324
01:11:35.040 --> 01:11:37.209
After the interview,
she told me she'd let me know

1325
01:11:37.293 --> 01:11:38.627
when to come in for orientation.

1326
01:11:39.586 --> 01:11:42.131
And I remember
my friend messaging me and being like,

1327
01:11:42.214 --> 01:11:44.842
"Did my manager call you yet?
When's your orientation?"

1328
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."

1329
01:11:49.305 --> 01:11:52.683
Whenever she asked the manager,
the manager was acting very strange.

1330
01:11:53.559 --> 01:11:56.312
After she interviewed me,
she called the district manager

1331
01:11:56.395 --> 01:11:58.355
because I was wearing a black headscarf.

1332
01:11:58.856 --> 01:12:01.567
At the time, they had a no-black policy.

1333
01:12:02.234 --> 01:12:05.779
He told her, "It doesn't matter
what color she wore. She can't work here."

1334
01:12:07.781 --> 01:12:08.949
I didn't know what to think.

1335
01:12:09.033 --> 01:12:11.452
That was the first time
anything had happened to me like that.

1336
01:12:11.535 --> 01:12:13.871
Soon after,
I was at my mom's friend's house,

1337
01:12:13.954 --> 01:12:16.206
and I was telling her what happened,

1338
01:12:16.290 --> 01:12:20.711
and she communicated with me
that I should get in touch with CAIR,

1339
01:12:20.794 --> 01:12:24.006
Council of American-Islamic Relations.

1340
01:12:24.590 --> 01:12:28.510
After getting into contact with them,
they made my story public.

1341
01:12:30.179 --> 01:12:33.349
They decided to file my case with the EOC

1342
01:12:33.432 --> 01:12:35.976
and see if they would take it on
as a lawsuit.

1343
01:12:36.810 --> 01:12:40.314
And that's when it got real, honestly.

1344
01:12:42.524 --> 01:12:43.942
My picture was everywhere,

1345
01:12:44.026 --> 01:12:46.278
and people were, like,
sending me messages.

1346
01:12:46.779 --> 01:12:49.365
People were tweeting the craziest things.

1347
01:12:50.407 --> 01:12:53.202
There was a point
where I stopped reading any comments.

1348
01:12:53.702 --> 01:12:58.457
For every positive, encouraging words,
I was getting so much hate.

1349
01:13:00.292 --> 01:13:02.294
I did get a couple death threats.

1350
01:13:03.587 --> 01:13:06.256
It was more, like,
hate towards my religion

1351
01:13:06.924 --> 01:13:09.676
and my beliefs to choose to cover.

1352
01:13:10.177 --> 01:13:13.305
But at the same time,
I even had Muslims, like, say,

1353
01:13:14.014 --> 01:13:16.308
"Why would you wanna
work for Abercrombie?"

1354
01:13:18.268 --> 01:13:21.146
I also had people say,
"Go back to your country,"

1355
01:13:21.230 --> 01:13:24.441
which is funny because I was born
and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

1356
01:13:24.525 --> 01:13:25.776
Where am I supposed to go?

1357
01:13:27.861 --> 01:13:31.990
[Maheshwari] Abercrombie really
dug its heels in on this topic

1358
01:13:32.074 --> 01:13:33.784
and decided that they were right.

1359
01:13:33.867 --> 01:13:37.413
The Abercrombie lawyers
tried to compare this to, you know,

1360
01:13:37.496 --> 01:13:38.747
wearing a baseball hat

1361
01:13:38.831 --> 01:13:42.334
and saying, "Well, we wouldn't let
an employee wear a baseball cap."

1362
01:13:42.418 --> 01:13:44.545
But obviously,
there's a really big difference

1363
01:13:44.628 --> 01:13:47.339
between a hijab and a baseball cap.

1364
01:13:47.423 --> 01:13:51.260
I remember going to my phone,
and it was, like, blowing up.

1365
01:13:52.761 --> 01:13:56.140
The Supreme Court came out with a list
of the 100 cases they would hear,

1366
01:13:56.223 --> 01:13:57.891
and mine was one of them.

1367
01:13:57.975 --> 01:13:59.685
[Berfield] That was pretty significant.

1368
01:13:59.768 --> 01:14:03.856
First, that a company would allow a case
to go to the Supreme Court.

1369
01:14:03.939 --> 01:14:05.232
Very unusual.

1370
01:14:05.315 --> 01:14:08.110
Most companies would want to settle

1371
01:14:08.193 --> 01:14:12.322
because they would be scared
about the publicity, winning or losing.

1372
01:14:12.406 --> 01:14:16.201
Their argument was that if they hired me,
I would hurt their brand,

1373
01:14:16.285 --> 01:14:18.370
which in return would hurt their sales.

1374
01:14:18.454 --> 01:14:21.039
That was their argument,
that I would hurt their numbers

1375
01:14:21.123 --> 01:14:22.958
because I didn't fit their look policy.

1376
01:14:24.126 --> 01:14:25.294
[reporter 4] <i>The Supreme Court</i>

1377
01:14:25.377 --> 01:14:28.172
<i>rejected that argument</i>
<i>by an eight to one vote.</i>

1378
01:14:29.047 --> 01:14:31.633
[reporter 5] <i>The justices say</i>
<i>Abercrombie & Fitch's actions</i>

1379
01:14:31.717 --> 01:14:34.761
<i>violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.</i>

1380
01:14:36.430 --> 01:14:38.932
[Sagafi] If Justice Scalia is moved
to say you're discriminating,

1381
01:14:39.016 --> 01:14:40.434
you're really doing something wrong.

1382
01:14:41.310 --> 01:14:44.855
I had eight that voted in my favor,
and I had one who didn't,

1383
01:14:44.938 --> 01:14:49.485
and the one judge who did not vote
in my favor was African American.

1384
01:14:49.568 --> 01:14:51.904
So, not saying
'cause you're African American,

1385
01:14:51.987 --> 01:14:55.574
you have to be on my side,
because we're different,

1386
01:14:55.657 --> 01:14:57.284
but I was just surprised.

1387
01:14:58.911 --> 01:15:02.164
To this day, when people are like,
"I saw you in my history book,"

1388
01:15:02.247 --> 01:15:04.041
or, "Oh, I was reading about you."

1389
01:15:04.124 --> 01:15:06.960
"Oh, I'm studying law.
We talked about you,"

1390
01:15:07.044 --> 01:15:10.214
I don't think I realized,
like, what all I did.

1391
01:15:13.467 --> 01:15:16.220
[O'Keefe] Abercrombie & Fitch went
all the way to the Supreme Court.

1392
01:15:16.303 --> 01:15:19.014
Discrimination was not just a blip.

1393
01:15:19.097 --> 01:15:21.058
It was not just one quote
from seven years.

1394
01:15:21.141 --> 01:15:23.435
It was their brand. It was their identity.

1395
01:15:23.519 --> 01:15:27.189
They rooted themselves in discrimination
at every single level.

1396
01:15:28.065 --> 01:15:30.859
Abercrombie, at that point,
was almost synonymous with scandal.

1397
01:15:30.943 --> 01:15:32.694
It wasn't really about the clothing

1398
01:15:32.778 --> 01:15:35.864
or that they had too much logo,
and logo was going out of style.

1399
01:15:35.948 --> 01:15:38.992
It was really like,
"Oh, this brand is becoming problematic,"

1400
01:15:39.076 --> 01:15:41.620
because, as analysts would say,

1401
01:15:41.703 --> 01:15:45.415
all of this is distracting from
the business of selling clothes.

1402
01:15:47.834 --> 01:15:51.964
<i>The second quarter proved</i>
<i>to be more difficult than expected.</i>

1403
01:15:52.047 --> 01:15:54.967
<i>We are not satisfied with our results</i>

1404
01:15:55.050 --> 01:16:00.556
<i>and are working hard to improve the trend</i>
<i>for the third quarter and beyond.</i>

1405
01:16:03.559 --> 01:16:07.854
[Berfield] Abercrombie was becoming
irrelevant under Mike Jeffries.

1406
01:16:08.355 --> 01:16:11.275
But Mike Jeffries
is making a lot of money.

1407
01:16:12.234 --> 01:16:15.237
Mike's been hounded
by these shareholder lawsuits saying,

1408
01:16:15.320 --> 01:16:18.991
"Why are you paying yourself
$40 million a year

1409
01:16:19.074 --> 01:16:23.287
when your stock is, you know,
in the, like, bottom 10%?"

1410
01:16:23.370 --> 01:16:25.622
I actually found a manual

1411
01:16:25.706 --> 01:16:29.668
for how to treat Mike Jeffries
on the company airplane.

1412
01:16:29.751 --> 01:16:31.295
[female voice] <i>Aircraft standards.</i>

1413
01:16:32.296 --> 01:16:37.342
<i>A 47-page manual</i>
<i>for the Abercrombie & Fitch executive jet.</i>

1414
01:16:37.426 --> 01:16:42.139
It's impossible to overstate
how particular

1415
01:16:42.222 --> 01:16:43.807
the instructions were.

1416
01:16:43.890 --> 01:16:46.643
[female voice]
<i>If the passengers are eating cold food,</i>

1417
01:16:46.727 --> 01:16:49.605
<i>crew members are not to eat hot meals.</i>

1418
01:16:49.688 --> 01:16:50.981
The kind of instructions

1419
01:16:51.064 --> 01:16:54.234
that you never really see
revealed to the public.

1420
01:16:54.860 --> 01:16:57.696
[female voice]
<i>When Michael or a guest make a request,</i>

1421
01:16:57.779 --> 01:16:59.323
<i>respond by saying,</i>

1422
01:17:00.032 --> 01:17:00.949
<i>"No problem."</i>

1423
01:17:01.533 --> 01:17:06.580
<i>This should be used in place of phrases</i>
<i>like, "Sure," or, "Just a minute."</i>

1424
01:17:08.081 --> 01:17:11.668
The shifts he made
for the company were great

1425
01:17:11.752 --> 01:17:14.379
in terms of a small period of time.

1426
01:17:14.463 --> 01:17:16.506
I don't think any of that was sustainable.

1427
01:17:16.590 --> 01:17:19.468
It didn't feel like
there was a long-term strategy there.

1428
01:17:19.551 --> 01:17:23.805
It felt like it was, "Let's grow it
as big as it can possibly get

1429
01:17:23.889 --> 01:17:25.057
and see what happens."

1430
01:17:25.140 --> 01:17:28.435
You don't want your brand
to run white-hot,

1431
01:17:28.518 --> 01:17:32.147
because white-hot brands always burn out.

1432
01:17:33.815 --> 01:17:36.193
[reporter 8] Abercrombie,
it's in dire straits.

1433
01:17:36.693 --> 01:17:39.237
It's just that CEO Mike Jeffries
doesn't seem to know it.

1434
01:17:40.364 --> 01:17:43.867
[Rupp] In the 2000s, business started
to really change for Abercrombie,

1435
01:17:44.701 --> 01:17:46.620
and I think the customer began to change.

1436
01:17:48.246 --> 01:17:51.750
[Maheshwari] It was losing
its luster with teens.

1437
01:17:55.879 --> 01:17:57.255
[Sanchez] It wasn't cool.

1438
01:17:57.339 --> 01:18:01.968
You were wearing Abercrombie & Fitch,
it was like a construction outfit.

1439
01:18:02.052 --> 01:18:05.013
When you're in construction,
you put on your boots to go to work,

1440
01:18:05.097 --> 01:18:08.600
and you get home,
those boots and all that stuff comes out.

1441
01:18:08.684 --> 01:18:09.810
You go to the shower.

1442
01:18:09.893 --> 01:18:13.230
You're wearin' somethin' else
to do whatever you're gonna do after that.

1443
01:18:13.313 --> 01:18:15.774
That was our Abercrombie & Fitch clothing.

1444
01:18:15.857 --> 01:18:19.319
At some point, those kids that learned
it wasn't cool to be bullied grew up

1445
01:18:19.403 --> 01:18:22.864
and decided they didn't wanna spend money
at a place that made them feel bad.

1446
01:18:22.948 --> 01:18:25.409
And so Abercrombie & Fitch, like…

1447
01:18:26.118 --> 01:18:28.036
Some of that aura went away

1448
01:18:28.120 --> 01:18:33.875
precisely because exclusion
was the root of their success.

1449
01:18:34.751 --> 01:18:39.423
And exclusion itself
stopped being quite so cool.

1450
01:18:40.757 --> 01:18:42.801
We've got breaking news
on the retail front.

1451
01:18:42.884 --> 01:18:46.388
Abercrombie & Fitch,
the CEO is stepping down.

1452
01:18:48.974 --> 01:18:54.438
He literally was on the phone
with executives on Sunday, December 7th,

1453
01:18:55.147 --> 01:18:57.983
and Monday, December 8th,
did not show up for work.

1454
01:18:58.066 --> 01:18:59.234
Never showed up again,

1455
01:18:59.317 --> 01:19:02.362
and many people
have never seen him since then.

1456
01:19:04.865 --> 01:19:08.452
[Spencer] I think people thought
that Mike was a permanent fixture,

1457
01:19:08.535 --> 01:19:10.454
and you sit there and you think,

1458
01:19:10.537 --> 01:19:14.833
"How long will there be tolerance
for this sort of behavior,

1459
01:19:14.916 --> 01:19:17.586
this type of comment,
this type of leadership?"

1460
01:19:17.669 --> 01:19:19.588
So you think he would never go away.

1461
01:19:19.671 --> 01:19:22.340
So I remember thinking when he finally--

1462
01:19:22.424 --> 01:19:24.885
[laughs] I was like, "Wow!"

1463
01:19:24.968 --> 01:19:27.095
Like, "They finally got rid of him."

1464
01:19:27.596 --> 01:19:30.891
At some point,
you know, all things come to an end.

1465
01:19:38.273 --> 01:19:41.401
[Tkacik] <i>Les Wexner</i>
<i>has been embroiled in scandals.</i>

1466
01:19:41.485 --> 01:19:43.653
Just heading to a meeting. Thank you.

1467
01:19:44.196 --> 01:19:47.991
[reporter 6] <i>Les Wexner announced</i>
<i>he was stepping down as CEO of L Brands.</i>

1468
01:19:49.534 --> 01:19:53.705
[reporter 7] <i>He remains under scrutiny</i>
<i>for his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein,</i>

1469
01:19:53.789 --> 01:19:57.167
<i>the convicted sex offender</i>
<i>and disgraced financier.</i>

1470
01:19:57.667 --> 01:20:00.796
[Tkacik] He not only signed over
his entire fortune to Jeffrey Epstein,

1471
01:20:00.879 --> 01:20:04.841
he let Jeffrey represent himself
as a Victoria's Secret model scout.

1472
01:20:06.218 --> 01:20:07.969
One of the biggest reasons

1473
01:20:08.053 --> 01:20:11.765
Jeffrey Epstein was able
to surround himself constantly

1474
01:20:11.848 --> 01:20:14.142
with really hot young women,

1475
01:20:14.226 --> 01:20:17.604
they thought that he could,
you know, make or break them.

1476
01:20:17.687 --> 01:20:20.690
Bombshell exposé in <i>The New York Times.</i>

1477
01:20:20.774 --> 01:20:24.402
Bruce Weber guilty of years
of sexual misconduct and abuse.

1478
01:20:25.487 --> 01:20:28.907
[Tkacik] <i>Bruce Weber, of course,</i>
<i>would be sued by legions of models.</i>

1479
01:20:29.658 --> 01:20:33.495
Bruce told me I was tense
and did some breathing exercises with me.

1480
01:20:33.995 --> 01:20:35.705
At the time, I froze.

1481
01:20:35.789 --> 01:20:37.624
I did not know how to respond.

1482
01:20:37.707 --> 01:20:41.253
The entire experience
was terrifying and humiliating.

1483
01:21:06.903 --> 01:21:12.826
Changes tend to happen when, you know,
those who raise concerns can point out

1484
01:21:12.909 --> 01:21:16.413
all the ways in which a company
is leaving money on a table

1485
01:21:16.496 --> 01:21:18.582
by its current actions.

1486
01:21:18.665 --> 01:21:20.166
And then changes happen.

1487
01:21:20.834 --> 01:21:24.337
Repositioning a brand<i> </i>and moving
a brand forward is not always easy.

1488
01:21:24.421 --> 01:21:27.424
So, candidly, we've had
a few starts and stops on our journey.

1489
01:21:27.507 --> 01:21:30.218
We are no longer the company
that we used to be.

1490
01:21:30.302 --> 01:21:32.345
That we could wipe clean
our social channels,

1491
01:21:32.429 --> 01:21:34.389
wipe clean the history.

1492
01:21:52.365 --> 01:21:54.743
[Lindsey] Having a broad range
of people represented

1493
01:21:54.826 --> 01:21:58.997
and feel included in your brand
is smart business.

1494
01:21:59.080 --> 01:22:01.708
There <i>is </i>a smart business
of being discriminatory

1495
01:22:01.791 --> 01:22:04.669
and being exclusionary,
because there are always gonna be people

1496
01:22:04.753 --> 01:22:07.797
who want to see themselves
as the cool kids.

1497
01:22:07.881 --> 01:22:10.508
But it's fascinating to see
how many brands now

1498
01:22:10.592 --> 01:22:14.387
are doubling down on the cool kids
being anybody and everybody.

1499
01:22:15.889 --> 01:22:19.976
And they've gone the other direction
with respect to the diversity of models.

1500
01:22:20.060 --> 01:22:22.562
Abercrombie & Fitch has announced plans

1501
01:22:22.646 --> 01:22:26.316
to no longer hire employees
based on attractiveness,

1502
01:22:26.399 --> 01:22:29.986
which should make
the first new guy they hire feel great.

1503
01:22:30.070 --> 01:22:31.571
[audience laughter]

1504
01:22:31.655 --> 01:22:34.699
It's just a shame
that we couldn't have gone to that sooner.

1505
01:22:37.118 --> 01:22:41.331
Abercrombie & Fitch is illustrative
more so than it is exceptional.

1506
01:22:41.957 --> 01:22:45.961
[Rupp] <i>They didn't invent evil.</i>
<i>They didn't invent class.</i>

1507
01:22:46.044 --> 01:22:48.129
<i>They just packaged it.</i>

1508
01:22:48.213 --> 01:22:52.384
If anything, it represents
the worst parts of American history

1509
01:22:52.467 --> 01:22:56.096
in terms of the cost,
the hiring practices, the images.

1510
01:22:56.179 --> 01:22:59.891
It's everything we want America not to be.

1511
01:23:00.684 --> 01:23:02.936
[Rupp] We all like to think
we have grown beyond that,

1512
01:23:03.019 --> 01:23:04.896
that we're all a little bit better.

1513
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.

1514
01:23:10.485 --> 01:23:11.319
Probably

1515
01:23:12.487 --> 01:23:15.365
that we really wanted to be liked.
[laughs]

1516
01:23:15.448 --> 01:23:20.787
We were kind of,
you know, blinded by our own… light.

1517
01:23:20.870 --> 01:23:23.581
[laughs] You know, we were like,
"We're so great. We're so successful."

1518
01:23:23.665 --> 01:23:26.334
But, like, social media wasn't a thing.

1519
01:23:26.418 --> 01:23:29.963
There were probably
just as many people as there are now

1520
01:23:30.046 --> 01:23:32.674
who hated what we were doing,
who were completely offended,

1521
01:23:32.757 --> 01:23:35.885
who didn't feel included,
who didn't feel represented.

1522
01:23:35.969 --> 01:23:38.596
But they didn't have the platform
to be able to voice it,

1523
01:23:38.680 --> 01:23:40.390
and now they do, so maybe…

1524
01:23:40.473 --> 01:23:43.476
Yeah, maybe it's not, like,
this massive societal new awareness.

1525
01:23:43.560 --> 01:23:47.605
It's just now we're hearing everyone,
and we have to pay attention.

1526
01:23:50.275 --> 01:23:55.238
[Yu] I think there's a limitation
to where brands can really walk the walk.

1527
01:23:55.321 --> 01:23:58.575
When it really comes down to it,
you're trying to sell something, right?

1528
01:23:58.658 --> 01:24:01.578
Can you really sell diversity inclusion

1529
01:24:01.661 --> 01:24:05.165
when really what you're trying to sell
is a V-neck, you know?

1530
01:24:05.999 --> 01:24:08.710
[Ocampo] My hope is that companies realize
that they play

1531
01:24:08.793 --> 01:24:12.922
a pivotal role in shaping culture,
shaping conversations,

1532
01:24:13.006 --> 01:24:17.177
shaping which people
in this society are valued.

1533
01:24:17.260 --> 01:24:20.680
The story of Abercrombie
is essentially an incredible indictment

1534
01:24:20.764 --> 01:24:22.932
of where our culture was…

1535
01:24:24.517 --> 01:24:26.227
oh, just ten years ago.

1536
01:24:26.311 --> 01:24:31.900
It was a culture
that, um, enthusiastically embraced

1537
01:24:31.983 --> 01:24:37.530
a nearly all sort of WASPy vision
of the world.

1538
01:24:37.614 --> 01:24:43.953
It was a culture that defined beauty
as thin and white and young,

1539
01:24:44.037 --> 01:24:50.335
and it was a culture
that was very happy to exclude people.

1540
01:24:51.878 --> 01:24:53.755
[producer] And so have we solved that now?

1541
01:24:53.838 --> 01:24:55.173
[laughs]

1542
01:24:55.256 --> 01:24:56.341
No.

1543
01:24:57.133 --> 01:25:00.845
<i>♪ Can't you see our generation</i>
<i>Goin' down the tubes? ♪</i>

1544
01:25:02.305 --> 01:25:06.684
<i>♪ The more we keep lookin' back</i>
<i>We can only lose ♪</i>

1545
01:25:08.186 --> 01:25:10.271
♪<i> Remember when we were</i>
<i>Kids hangin' out? ♪</i>

1546
01:25:10.355 --> 01:25:13.066
<i>♪ Feelin' all right</i>
<i>Thinkin' we're on top? ♪</i>

1547
01:25:13.149 --> 01:25:16.611
<i>♪ Well, now the whole damn generation's</i>
<i>Goin' down the tubes ♪</i>

1548
01:25:18.947 --> 01:25:21.366
<i>♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>

1549
01:25:21.449 --> 01:25:24.285
<i>♪ I'm left wantin' more</i>
<i>Than what we could do ♪</i>

1550
01:25:24.369 --> 01:25:26.788
<i>♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>

1551
01:25:26.871 --> 01:25:29.791
<i>♪ Yeah, that's right, I'm talking to you ♪</i>

1552
01:25:51.521 --> 01:25:53.857
<i>♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>

1553
01:25:53.940 --> 01:25:56.860
<i>♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>

1554
01:25:56.943 --> 01:25:59.487
<i>♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>

1555
01:25:59.571 --> 01:26:02.532
<i>-♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>
<i>-♪ It's goin' down the tubes ♪</i>

1556
01:26:02.615 --> 01:26:05.285
<i>-♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>
-<i>♪ It's goin' down the tubes ♪</i>

1557
01:26:05.368 --> 01:26:08.121
<i>-♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>
<i>-♪ It's goin' down the tubes ♪</i>

1558
01:26:08.204 --> 01:26:10.832
<i>-♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>
<i>-♪ It's goin' down the tubes ♪</i>

1559
01:26:10.915 --> 01:26:13.501
<i>♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>

1560
01:26:13.585 --> 01:26:16.004
<i>♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>

1561
01:26:16.087 --> 01:26:18.256
<i>♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>

1562
01:26:18.882 --> 01:26:21.259
<i>♪ Say goodbye to your generation ♪</i>