The attractive people haven't been coming through very well lately for abercrombie & Fitch. Or even it is just the inventory and provide problems the company cited or perhaps the European economy. Anyways, the Columbus-based retailer that will tries to reside within the fringe of teen fashion reported a xiii percent drop in same-stores sales at its namesake stores during the first quarter and an xviii percent drop at its Hollister chain.
As well, Saturday brought the most recent chapter in the renewal from the firestorm from the 3 rice over abercrombie and fitch 's exclusionary retailing and marketing practices—exclusive, that's, of the vast swaths of even Millennial population who don't fit the rib-rocked, often-headless icons within the brand's none-too-subtle marketing.
Benjamin O'Keefe, an 18-twelvemonth-old eating-disorder survivor exactly who protested at company headquarters the other day and finished up meeting with company executives (but is not CEO Michael Jeffries), wrote in Saturday that he was "cautiously optimistic" that this company might take an alternative attitude compared to the one displayed by Jeffries in the past—inside a quote recently dug up by Business Insider—about how exactly the brand is merely considering outfitting cool, hip, skinny, "All-American kid(s) which has a great attitude and many friends."
"I left Abercrombie that has a challenge: redefine what is 'cool,'" O'Keefe wrote for the Guardian website. "At the moment their brand is not cool; it represents discrimination. Abercrombie did that to themselves by insisting on the dangerous ideal of beauty.
However this controversy represents the opportunity to allow them to rescue their brand's image by means of redefining cool to add the diversity that teens represent and value."
In the meantime, Abercrombie & Fitch has to bother with mollifying the investors who is not too happy about its every three months performance. Jeffries told them on the business call on Friday that "inventory" included "approximately 10 % in the comp-sales decline caused by both lower amounts of fall carryover and delays in spring deliveries." He said that this "environment in Europe became more difficult again and first-quarter temperature issues happen to be extensively recorded." The embattled CEO however produced no mention of ongoing ridicule the brand has become facing.
Will be company doing about all the? Jeffries cited a significant initiative "aimed at profit improvement via a detailed article on our existing operational processes." Past that, he and CFO Jonathan Ramsden told investors along with analysts within the call that abercrombie and fitch is trying to show around its acknowledged recent weak point in the women's knit-wear business, focusing on opening new Hollister stores inwards China and Japan, rolling come out of the closet more families of accessories, boosting its Gilly Hicks intimate-wear brand, reducing its development cycle and de-emphasizing the original "A&F" logo wear.
Then one more thing. Jeffries just added aboard a different senior vice chairman of marketing, Craig Brommers, who got their start in Calvin Klein. Here you are at the crucible, Craig.