I could have written this post without showing headless, topless beautiful people, but where’s the fun in that? (Via hollywood.com)

I still own a few articles of clothing that I obtained at the Abercrombie & Fitch store in the Houston Galleria around 1997 or 1998. Shortly after that time period, I realized that the store no longer had anything to offer me. Around 1997, Abercrombie & Fitch was best described as a slightly fancier Eddie Bauer, a style that might still suit me to this day. One day, probably in 1999, I went into the Houston store and found myself knee- to waist-deep in douche. Not literally, of course, but the store seemed to have abruptly changed from a place that offered durable clothes that appealed to me (as evidenced by the fact that some of the clothes I got there have held on for 16+ years) to a place where beautiful people go to feel superior.

We have known for a long time that the current CEO of the company is a douchenozzle, and that he has designed a store for his fellow douchenozzles:

As far as [Mike] Jeffries is concerned, America’s unattractive, overweight or otherwise undesirable teens can shop elsewhere. “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he says. “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. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”

Recently, the company has been under fire for not even bothering to sell women’s XL sizes, which has brought Jeffries’ pontifications on coolness and beauty back to the fore. It has also given many of us an opportunity. More on that later.

In a heartfelt and moving piece at Huffington Post, Sara Taney Humphries writes to Jeffries: Continue reading →