first time on this thread...just kinda breezed through it.....my semi-experience with it:

last spring abercrombie came to our mall....a few of my friends were hired to help set it up, but then once it opened, were put in the back on stock crew, and then eventually just given no hours. one of which was my old roomie who is absolutely GORGEOUS (we noticed the "pretty"/stereotypical skinny blonde/"abercrombie boys" ppl were kept out front)....yet not white, but mexican. hmmm....we wondered what was up with that......

just a note...

That's how it is at a lot of places. i.e. Lerner, Express, Limited, etc. etc. They try to give you a discount but if you only make like $6 or $7 an hour, :(, you just keep giving your check to the company. I think with Lerner, Limited, and Express you have to keep your clothes current. Meaning whatever is on the sales floor now that you buy, you cannot wear it next fall 2004 after it is no longer the current hot product. You work there as another mannequin but you also ring the merchandise up and push that freaking credit card. :p

that's how it was when i worked at the gap... although don't think i made that much. we were given a nice discount but it was so we could wear what was currently in the store. we could also wear basics, black, white, grey, and navy so i tried to stick with those. i honestly don't think i made any money that year. it just went back to buying the clothes.

Yes indeed.

OMG BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you are a stone cold fool. :p

Yes, but at least at some of these places, you can "recycle" your looks because they sell a lot of "key" clothing piece (a lot of basic black and white). In places like A&F, you need to keep up with the current trendy Tees and sweaters.

I'm the same way - I used to work at a relatively upscale department store selling shoes, and my coworkers were pretty much entirely minorities (African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic, etc..). They were called a host of names by some of our clientele (predonimately white women), and if I had a dollar for every time a woman said to me "Can you help me? I don't trust that darkie/Mexican/Tacohead(???)/ni----/Oriental?" I would not need student loans. They were all incredibly good natured about it (and I always refused the customer, telling them that BillySue was very capable to assist them) and when we were in the stockroom they would jokingly call me "Honkey" all the time. I saw one of them while shopping the other day and he yelled "Hey Honkey!" across the sales floor - got some weird looks, but made me laugh. :)

I'm not saying that race doesn't matter . . . I'm saying that it has no bearing on your ability to perform a given task. In general, race matters a LOT -- it's our heritage, it's our ancestry, it's our history, it's a huge portion of our identity. I don't think it's a good idea to promote "colorblindness" in order to have racial equality, because that almost verges on assimilation . . . it's not the answer.

But race has no bearing on how well you can fold sweaters, and that's the original point of this topic.

That's true. I think there's a difference between A&F and a lot of stores in that most stores just want you to be wearing stuff for the season (fall 2003, etc) and allows you to wear somewhat older khakis/other neutral pieces whereas A&F says that as soon as something hits the sales rack, you can't wear it to work anymore. That basically means new outfits every month, if not more often.

JAM.
You are Truly Wise!

Half my chapter has worked at AF at one tiem or another. Theres one 'bout 3 miles from campus. It is a hobby, not a job. They all liked it, but it was really expensive for them to work there. Someone before mentioned how AF used to be a good brand. Indeed. I have an uncle who is an avid outdoorsman and still owns quite a few Abercrombie pieces of hunting gear from 10+ years ago. I think he even owns a few AF fishing lures, lol. Nowdays youd be just a sliekly to find an AF lure as a dangle on a shell necklace. lol. He also has this huge hunting scene print framed above his fireplace that says "Abercrombie and Fitch" across the bottom. It cracks me the FU.

Apparently, from what I remember from a marketing class a while back... Abercrombie has in fact been in business since 1896 or whatever, however in the late 80's or early 90's the company was posting losses. At the same time, one of those big clothing retailers was looking to create a brand that appealed to this market segment. So I am not sure if it was Spiegel, or one of the limited companies, but one of them bought the AF name and trademarks and retooled it as what it is today, Essentially keeping only the name. So If I remember correctly, Its rither owned by one of those big retailers or is a part of one of them. I know the GAP companies did the same thing in the late 80's with the Bananna Republic brand. Anyone here rememebr when BR was all safari? I found an old BR safari shopping bag in our warehouse last week and laughed my ass off. GAP wanted to capture more of the market. GAP itself only marketed to middle income shoppers. They brought on BR and retooled it to upclass, and then createed Old Navy, to appeal to the more price concious consumers.

Someone feel free to correct me on the above info. I am pretty sure I rememebred it all correctly, but its been a few years since that class.

Lifesaver, I think you are just about right. I really liked A&F back in the mid-90s (lol, I feel old) and their stuff was a lot better made then. Now it's all ishtty logo tees and pants meant for 4 year olds.

I honestly don't know much about A&F as I'm not a part of their target demographic, but I went into one of their stores today just to see what it was like and I was less than impressed.

Their stuff is really pretty cheap looking and on top of that, it's really expensive! Don't get me wrong, I have no problem paying an extravagant amount for clothing (just ask Mr. KillarneyRose, payer of my bills :D ), but that stuff is junk! You can almost hear the high-ups in their parent company laughing their a$$es off at the gullibility of the people who shop there.

So were you deafened at the decibile level of the music in there? I was in there in May and was freaking out that I had turned into my mom/dad, becasue my first thought was, can someone turn this infernal music down? I dont think its that loud in most clubs I go to.

SigmaChiCard-Thank you for your kindness. Wish you were around more. Miss hearing your thoughts.

Librasoul, honestly, here I have never, ever seen kids from our HS wear the brand. Then again, maybe it's because we are in the South.

When we were first married, a group of about 15 men had a yearly party and is was called "The Banana Republic Party". (They pooled about 125 each and were allowed 20 invites.) It was a big deal at first and everyone dressed in their safari look! Later, people began to realize they could scrounge around and pull a similar outfit together for much less.

I forgot about the fishing gear!!! Hey Lifesaver, hold on to that picture!
I bet my bottom dollar it will be a GREAT collectable if it's not already. Advertising memorabilia is highly valued, especially if it's something unique like a framed picture as compared to something
like a matchbook-though some of those are pretty good as well.

I always wondered what you did with the Hummels!
That was you wasn't it???

I know, what's up with that? Most music stores don't have their tunes cranked up that high!