Abercrombie and Fitch Homeless Brand Readjustment: Filmmaker "Rebrands" Company By Donating Thrift Shop Clothes To Homeless [VIDEO]
Greg Karber, a Los Angeles, California, filmmaker, wanted to “remake” the Abercrombie and Fitch brand in a very unconventional way: finding Abercrombie & Fitch clothing in thrift shops and giving them to the homeless. This was done in response to Abercrombie & Fitch’s marketing strategy, which CEO Mike Jeffries commented on in a Salon article published in 2006.
“In every school, there are the cool and popular kids and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
This strategy Karber alleges even extends to clothing donations, referring to headlines where Abercrombie & Fitch was accused of “burning clothing,” rather than donating to people in need.
A Gather interview from an anonymous Abercrombie & Fitch district manager from 2010 was the basis of this allegation: "Any clothing that has any type of blemish, including things such as a stitch missing or a frayed fabric, gets sent back to the company for immediate disposal.”
The manager further told Gather: “Abercrombie & Fitch don’t want to create the image that just anybody, poor people, can wear their clothing. Only people of a certain stature are able to purchase and wear the company name.”
Karber hopes to spark a social media storm and movement through the Twitter hashtag “#Fitchthehomeless” to both clothe the homeless and address Abercrombie & Fitch’s business practices.
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