ABERCROMBIE & FITCH will no longer be using topless models at store openings and plans to stop hiring staff based on their looks.
(You may remember said topless models from the opening of the A&F store in Dublin a few years ago- teenagers braved November weather to queue for the opening.)
The changes are now happening after the CEO Mike Jeffries stepped down from the board.
The president of the company’s Abercrombie brand, Christos Angelides, said that Abercrombie & Fitch is putting “the customer at the center of the business” once again.
He told Bloomberg Business “for too long stores and clothes were tailored to Jeffries’s whims.”
Jeffries left in December after being at the helm for more than two decades.
Under his rein the company had a ‘look policy’ which banned eyeliner, French-tip manicures, certain hair products and even moustaches. The rules are now going to be a little gentler.
The retailer has 965 stores in more than 20 countries and from now on, staff will be referred to as brand representatives - not models.
Muslim teenager Samantha Elauf was denied a job because she wore a head scarf.
The company argued its actions were legal because it didn’t have “actual knowledge” that Elauf wore the scarf for religious reasons.
Brighter and calmer
Abercrombie says it plans to turn up the lights, turn down the music and stop spraying so much colognes around the shops. Irish mammys across the country will be delighted with this.
From July the sexualized images of bodies will be gone from all marketing images including shopping bags, photos and gift cards.
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