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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
My brother is under the spell of a company that promotes the frat-boy free-for-all.
Mar 3, 2000 | "Abercrappie" is what my youngest brother called Abercrombie & Fitch after Ryan, our 15-year-old sibling, begged for the worn-looking, overpriced clothes du jour.
Shirts, pants, sweaters, socks -- Ryan wanted Abercrombie everything and he stumped for the stuff like a wide-eyed activist. In the kitchen, tossing punches at Josh and me, he used the word "quality." When I walked away, he chased me with a speech about owning "just a few things that you love to wear." He even suggested that I pick up some Abercrombie -- "It might help you get a girlfriend," he offered with very little tact.
Christmas was only a few days away and the smart-alecky banter -- "I want X" vs. "So what, you can't have it" -- rang typical, as much a part of our family's holiday tradition as egg nog. But a specific brand request: That was new.
I remembered longing for Air Jordans, Champion sweatshirts, even Ralph Lauren Polo shirts. But my parents shamed me into either buying them myself or squeezing them out of relatives. On occasion, Mom or Dad gave in, but they always had a choice. Never, strong as my longing was, had one designer inspired the single-branded passion I heard in Ryan's voice. Somehow, Abercrombie was different: more manipulative and more coveted than both its past and present rivals.
That drug-like draw angered me. After watching packs of pimply teenage boys in Massachusetts malls ogle the boobs and brands of the opposite sex, I couldn't help but want Ryan to swim against the current in this sea of conformity.
I swore I would never buy him the Abercrombie clothing I saw his peers wearing like a uniform. In fact, I decided I would play with his repulsive desire by putting a "Just kidding!" note inside an Abercrombie gift-certificate envelope.
First, though, I tried to fight back with words.
"Why would you want to be a billboard?" I asked. "They're not paying you to advertise their name."
Ryan went for finely tuned sarcasm. "But it's just so cool," he said, trying to irk me in the short term while offering the kind of self-deprecation that just might convince me to give him what he wanted later on.
By that time, my question was largely rhetorical. I already knew the real reason he was lusting after these clothes. Only two months earlier, Ryan had begun fusing himself to Nicole, a blond A student who won our family's favor by staunching Ryan's class-clown tendencies.
But while she kept his bragging to a minimum, Nicole also amplified Ryan's navel-, chest- and shoulder-gazing. When I picked her up on Christmas night, she wore a yellow Abercrombie T-shirt, and as I drove the magnetic couple back to our family's house, A&F earned at least as much air time as the latest gossip about teachers and other high school trysts. Nicole, like many women present and past, had become the arbiter of her man's taste. And in her court, Abercrombie was king.
"I think it's all she wears," said my mother that same afternoon, chuckling. She had already decided that Nicole passed muster, so her criticism remained light. Still, as a frugal New Hampshire native who stocks her shelves with generic foods and her closets with closeouts, my mom became easily incensed when discussing Abercrombie's prices.
"Seventy dollars for pants! It's outrageous."
What's more, as a mother who objects to premarital sex with a puritanical fervor, she also objected to the company's marketing campaign. Essentially, it sexualizes America's love of the aristocratic golden boy and girl -- the blond, WASPish, Ivy League party animals most recently represented by Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow in "The Talented Mr. Ripley."
Ads for Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Nautica have played on similar themes for years, but Abercrombie's models look younger, more collegiate. And Abercrombie plays closer to the frat-boy mentality, plastering naked male chests in most of its 205 store windows, while selling 300-page, quarterly catalogs that cost $6 and include interviews with porn stars and articles about drinking.
Indeed, women appear in the ads as well, but the boys rule. When they're not baring their asses to clamber naked aboard a dock or laying prostrate in the grass, the models huddle, flex and pose in store foregrounds like 10-foot trophies, a fact that most teens couldn't help but notice and want to copy in their own lives.
