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Be There in Five

Fitch, Please

Be There in Five

Kate Kennedy

Personal Journals, Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Entertainment News, News, Society & Culture

4.87.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2022

⏱️ 152 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this deep dive, Kate examines the history, controversy, nostalgia, turnaround, inappropriate t-shirts, catalogs, and employee policies of iconic retailer Abercrombie & Fitch through the lens of the comeback it's making now. Part-research, part-personal anecdote, part-crowdsourced, this analysis takes both a serious and lighthearted approach to analyzing the influence of a brand that is both nostalgic and historically problematic. Enjoy!

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WORKS CITED

https://fusion.tv/story/32813/a-decade-of-tastelessness-finally-grounds-abercrombie-fitch-into-irrelevance/amp/

https://web.archive.org/web/20210326015634/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-29-cl-16389-story.html

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/03/05/feeling-minnesota

https://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-fitch-crazy-history-2011-4#the-retailer-hit-some-road-bumps-along-the-way-3

https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-clothing-brand-abercrombie-and-fitch

https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2001/09/10/a-brand-to-fit-all-ages/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1938914.stmv

https://www.complex.com/style/2013/05/controversy-fitch-a-history-of-abercrombies-most-flagrant-fuck-ups/girlcott

https://www.glamour.com/story/abercombie-to-ditch-sexualized

https://www.randyhortoncreative.com/abercrombie

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-may-23-na-thong23-story.html

https://money.cnn.com/2003/12/02/news/companies/abercrombie_catalog/index.htm

https://echoapollo.com/companies/134?form_type=10-K

https://web.archive.org/web/20100331165338/https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/06/business/the-media-business-advertising-abercrombie-fitch-extends-a-print-campaign-to-tv.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/03/business/media-business-advertising-come-hither-abercrombie-fitch-invites-other.html

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/fashion/news/a5981/abercrombie-douchey-tshirts/

https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/abercrombie-fitch-employment-discrimination/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I like to use these musical stylings to set the scene.

0:13.9

Imagine it somewhere between 1999 and 2003.

0:18.4

No, you're not tripping balls at a warehouse rave or a Berlin nightclub.

0:24.1

You are shattering your eardrums and playing fast and loose with some serious cologne fume

0:28.8

induced genoja while picking out a sensible cargo pant and nabbercrombian fitch.

0:34.5

Senses you don't typically expect to experience somewhere in between a jimberi and a zales

0:39.7

jewelers, but alas, here you are.

0:42.8

Back then you spent your time hanging out in the best third place of them all.

0:48.8

The mall.

0:49.8

Didn't mean to do that.

0:53.4

You're overtaken by the sights, the sounds, the smells, the aroma of loose change and

0:59.1

a grand fountain inside a two-story linoleum suburban castle.

1:04.5

Maybe you hear nature sounds by the polished rocks at a natural wonders.

1:09.7

You bring your egg game to an arden bee.

1:13.7

You're struck by the bath and bodyworks canopy whose red gingham reminds you of the luxury,

1:19.8

only Felicity Maryman's canopy bed could ever provide.

1:23.1

You can never afford.

1:24.1

But you go anyway.

1:25.1

You've rifeed through the travel sizes, hoping to stumble upon treasure in the form of

1:30.8

a travel size affordable cucumber melon, perhaps a sweet pea.

1:34.5

Anything to walk out of that glorified crack or barrel smelling like an edible arrangement.

1:40.5

Perhaps you settle getting swept away by adjunient properties because there's a free

...

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