A&F CEO plane cabin rules

[sebbie]

There are any number of stories out there outlining the rules the cabin
must follow for the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, For example

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...underwear.html

Jeffries, the CEO, apparently has a male "life partner" which to a degree explains the fascination of the A&F and affiliated Hollister stores with bare male body torsos.

More interesting to me, however is that the clothing as described that must be worn by the male stewards conforms almost exactly to the promotional looks on the A&F and also the affiliated "Hollisterco sites. For example, take a look at these two links:

http://www.abercrombie.com/webapp/wc...g oryId=12226

and
http://www.hollisterco.com/webapp/wc...g oryId=12573

What is interesting to me, is that the "A&F Looks and the "Cali looks" exactly fit the description of the clothing that must be worn by the male stewards, down to realy snug boxer-briefs and the open foot flip flops!

Aside from the fascination with young males, I'm beginning to think the "A&F look" and the Cali look both have some fetish-like overtones. For starters, no college guy is going to wear open flip flops year around, and certainly not to cold winter college football games. It seems more than a little odd that neither A&F or Hollister offer any type of footwear other than flip flops.

There are other odd things as well. The underwear varies in color, but is all basically the same design, a short, tight-fitting boxer brief. Why all just one design?

And the mens jeans. There are dozens of colors and washes, but every pair has a button not zip fly. Seems strange that all guys would prefer a button fly over a zipper. Some might but all?

Why this works at all as a major business is more than a mystery. THe designs are a little over the top preppy, with an emphasis on snug-fitting jeans and boxer briefs. A&F can be thought of as just a giant "store brand" Pretty well made, technically, but still just another store brand. In clothing, many "national brands" have so called outlet stores that sell cheaper grades of the nationsal brand at 30 % off. One could see Hollister as simply the Outlet store for A&F.

Somehow teen males in HS and College have, at least to a degree, adopted "the look" which seems to mostly play out the fantasies of the CEO relating to flip flops, boxer-briefs and button-fly jeans. Why this has been so successful is beyond me. Selling what amounts to store brand clothing at premium brand prices has got to be pretty profitable, but how so many teen males have gotten sucked into this nearly male fetish stuff remains a mystery.

[NJHunkguy]

Interesting story, thanks!

[Byron]

http://www.psfk.com/2012/10/abercrom...l-demands.html
Footwear for the pilot not mentioned but better not be middle-aged !

[sebbie]

There are all sorts of what I would term "gayboy elements" in an A&F store. For starters the customer on entry to the store normally encounters a huge b&w photo of a bare-chested (teen or early 20s) male model. But as I indicated above, there are elements that are also at least borderline fetish--the fascination with flip flops and bare feet, for example, really tight button-fly jeans, sweatpants, the fascination with colorful boxerbriefs etc, The issue here is that these same or very similar designs over and over tends to slip this all into male fetish mode.

There are mens' clothing retailers that cater all but exclusively to gays. The problem for a retailer is that this limits how large the store market can be, A&F to be successful on the scale that they are, has to have a much larger market, including a lot of (mostly, at least) straight males. What is interesting to me is that A&F has been able to successfuly sell this clothing to the broader group of customers, or at least a significant share of them.

Which leads me back to my theory that for the vast majority of straight guys, there is still very much curiousity about being gay and this pops out with clothing selections that are consistent with that.

Then there are the teen girls, who also buy at A&F and the bare male torso becomes the "calling card" at the front of the store. THis part is really tough to figure out, except to say that teen females often are fascinated by androgenous young males. Were that not the case, boy bands would not be successful. I suspect that the teen female fascination with A&F is not unlelated to the boy band fetish.

[Byron]

"really tough to figure out" - no it isn't - this sounds like you have the psychological burdens of gender and/or sexual orientation on your shoulders again - so that we end up with another statement of the bleedin' obvious.

We know what to expect in an A&F shop just as we know what to expect when we go into a gay sex shop.
What's so new about the "straight" guys adopting the clothing styles first popularised in the gay community ?
'twas ever thus - so why all this concern about "fetish"?

Sorry - just too OTT for me to get anything out of this inconclusive analysis I'm afraid.

PS: Mr Jefferies may soon have to bring about some changes in A&F and in his own extravagant lifestyle if market-share continues on the downward spiral
and more male and/or female clothes-shopping is done elsewhere.