A & F

Upon examining the Abercrombie and Fitch website I am struck by the first image that is on the homepage. There is a young man from the waist up with no shirt on smiling with his hand behind his head. If I’m not mistaken, A&F sell clothes yet there are no clothes to be seen. Instead, there is a model in typical model form: dark skin, straight teeth, young, physically fit and down right good looking. The man represents what every guy who wears A&F wants to be, an Abercrombie model. Abercrombie produces this image in order to sell its merchandise. They are implying that buying and wearing these clothes, or lack there of, contributes to your physical appearance.
On the A&F homepage is a link entitled A&F TV: Loch Ness. After following the links, I was presented with a seven minute video that involved three girls who went to Scotland in search of Loch Ness. They went through a series of interviews with people who have seen the ‘monster,’ visited the museum and even went out on the lake in search of the mysterious monster. Now, what the hell does this have to do with A&F clothing? Well, I did notice that the girls were wearing the product, but no where in the video did they mention A&F clothing or try to sell them. I think that this is a symbol of adventure that A&F uses to sell their clothes. The girls did have plaid skirts or kilts and high socks on which are two items of clothing that they sell. This implies that if you wear our ‘cultural’ clothes i.e. Scottish Kilts, then you too can believe in the Loch Ness monster and even go search for it if you want. However, while watching this video, I became more intrigued with the story of Loch Ness rather than what kind of clothes the girls were wearing. It might also be useful to say that all three of the girls were young and beautiful, which seems to be a continuous theme with A&F clothing.
In examining the other links for men’s clothing, there are other pictures of A&F models, all of which are male and all of which have little or no clothing on. There is one picture of two guys in a dune buggy and the gentleman on the left has a white t-shirt on with no marks of A&F on it. Ironically, when you purchase any piece of clothing that A&F sells, it is ‘defaced’ with their own logo either spelling out Abercrombie and Fitch, an A&F logo, or even a moose. This is a way for A&F to create their own form of advertisement. They use their consumers for their own greater good and the consumers like it!