THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 25, 2002

Abercrombie & Sex

Once upon a time, Abercrombie & Fitch was an outdoor store, a sort of upscale L.L. Bean.  Lately, however, its lures have less to do with angling than with underage sex.

The Illinois State Legislature last week passed a resolution condemning the retailer's advertising campaign and calling on "the public, and parents especially, to boycott [the store], and [urging] stockholders to demand a public stand against their marketing techniques promoting an obscene lifestyle, until advertising of this nature ceases."

The catalyst is the latest issue of "A&F Quarterly," which looks more like a 300-page soft-core porn magazine than the mail-order catalog it purports to be. It contains page after page of semi-clad and nude models, some even undressing one another. For a clothing catalog, its models certainly spend a lot of time in the buff. The company requires ID to purchase the catalog; the Web site is available to all.

You might say there's no news here.  After all, the Victoria's Secret catalog leaves little to the imagination, and Calvin Klein has made a career out of pushing the decency envelope in his advertising campaigns.

But those companies are pitching to consenting adults. Abercrombie's market is youth- teens and college students, groups for which, however, much they might protest the thought, society still has an obligation to set an example. Abercrombie is also doing more than selling clothes.  It says it's promoting "life-style."  The "A&F Quarterly" has a Relationship Guide" ("What to expect from your lover as the summer wears on") and a Q&A section ("This chick I banged last summer won't return my phone calls").

As Benetton showed with its infamous deathrow ad campaign a few years back, a company is free to market itself as it pleases. But in a free economy, the public is equally free to vote with its credit card and shop elsewhere.

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