Netflix’s new tell-all documentary, White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch has Twitter on fire. It may have been the millennial uniform of choice back in the early noughties when the brand’s cali-cool mini skirts and jeans were all everyone wanted to wear. But really, A&F was famous for two things: denim and discrimination. So why is it only now, a couple of decades later that the brand is being firmly held to account?
For me, the documentary was triggering to watch. Many of the workers who were interviewed had similar experiences to me when I worked there. There’s a part of the documentary where a former A&F Recruiter, Jose Sanchez, candidly says that he would be doing a disservice to previous staffers of colour if he didn’t admit that the culture at A&F was suss. “It wasn’t…not racist” — he says, implying that it was in fact racist, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it out loud. The interviewer repeats it back in a questioning tone and they both share an awkward, despairing laugh. I could relate to that moment, because the fear of speaking out is real, and sometimes it’s easier and more cathartic to be honest about your thoughts by being equivocal, instead of getting thrown on the firing line as a whistleblower. I too have been asked the same in the past, and my answer? “Hmm, it wasn’t… not racist.”
When I first stepped foot in Abercrombie & Fitch as an employee for Hollister Co. (a sub-brand of A&F), I was just a 19-year-old looking for pocket money. I stayed for four years and was hired as an assistant manager after two and a half years of service, but ultimately, I was left distraught by the racial bias and discriminatory behaviour from senior management. Effectively, I was pushed out.
Do the teens not know what a mall is? Or is this guy just overexplaining?
It was 2014 when I joined, the brand was under a microscope as they manoeuvred through major leadership changes as the notorious ex-CEO Mike Jeffrey stepped down. After many years of doubling down on their poor diversity and inclusion efforts, intrinsic discrimination charges, exclusionary marketing, and racism lawsuits, A&F was looking for a transformative re-brand. As a Black woman, it had never felt like a safer time for me to jump onto it. Their marketing made me feel like people that look like me now mattered.
At the time, I had dark hair with wavy extensions that I very proudly dip-dyed blue. During my interview, I was told my hair didn't comply with uniform policy, so that same day I cut the blue out without hesitation. During orientation, I watched a video with people from different nationalities saying how much the company embraced diversity and championed people of all different backgrounds. There was even a Black woman in management wearing an Afro. I felt seen.
I loved my years as what they called a “brand representative” (formerly known as a model). It was a fun and eccentric job, and a refreshing distraction from my maths degree seminars. But I started seeing and hearing things in the company that were suspicious. Stores had a “Diversity & Inclusion” notice board which felt like optics. They proudly displayed a sheet with names and profiles of the D&I council full of people – from senior managers and above – who were supposed to be representatives of the company. And yet, after the brand revealed it had increased its POC staff ratio to 53% in 2011, from 10% in 2004, as of 2018, zero of the 15 members of the D&I global council were Black and only two of them were visibly of colour.
I remember a member from my senior management posting on their Instagram feed an image of five young white people (four of them having blonde hair and blue or brown eyes) holding signs saying their nationalities: “Welsh, Swedish, Danish, Greek, American, Dutch” and another sign saying “Diversity & Inclusion” with a very non-discrete caption reading: “#beinclusive #eraseexclusion #31027 #hco #hollister *surf emoji”. It felt like satire, but it was serious. I know, because I challenged it. I knew from that post alone [although that not being the only post] that the brand had failed its mission to effectively educate staff with its D&I initiative in that ten-year run full of lawsuits and bad press. The staff simply did not understand how they could create a safe and inclusive environment for marginalised groups, and that was alarming.
