Madeline
White Hot is the documentary about the great rise and eventual meltdown of the most coved brand of my generation. It is a brand that openly talked about going after the cool kids and openly discriminated it’s employees. This is a brand that had a real high peak and a real low meltdown.
Premise of White Hot
This documentary starts with how Abercrombie and Fitch came to be. How it started as an old man brand and became a brand that everyone wanted to wear and be associated with. After building this empire that had the brand of All American, the holes started to show through. The fall of this brand started with the discrimination of the employees. It was not about the numbers, like most retail stores, but what the employees looked like. The brand had blatant racism of their graphic t-shirts. Then the discrimination of consumers started coming to light.
After a lawsuit, they were pushed to hire a Chief Diversity Officer, but this position ended up being their way of putting a bandaid on the underlying issue. The “look” they wanted was still pushed, but with a little bit of leeway to allow for a more diverse employee base. But the discrimination was still apparent and the lawsuits kept coming, including sexual misconduct lawsuits.
My Experience with Abercrombie and Fitch
I was at the right age at the time when Abercrombie and Fitch was at its prime. There was a time where I would walk into an Abercrombie and Fitch store and owned everything I wanted in there. I felt cool. I was finally in with the cool kids, just as the brand wanted me to feel.
Then one of my best friends got a job at Abercrombie and Fitch. That is when my ideas about the brand started to change. She openly talked about being hired for her looks. She talked about the things should could and could not wear or do. Heels are not okay to wear but Abercrombie and Fitch flip flops were fine. Black is a color to never wear. She explained much of what this brand’s former employees explain within this documentry. Eventually, she quit the job and was 100% okay with it, and that was enough of a sign to me that this was not a good brand to wear.
Final Thoughts
The topic of Abercrombie and Fitch going from hot to not is a topic that hits close to home. Although there was a similar documentary about Von Dutch, the difference is that I was a faithful consumer of Abercrombie and Fitch once upon a time but as the discrimination unraveled, it quickly became uncool to wear and a brand I no longer wanted to be associated with. This is a documentary of the issues that the target consumer was aware of but did not understand the details.
