JKR

Abercrombie & Fitch’s art direction is testament to the brand’s ability to take something as universal as the male body and represent it in a distinctive and immediately recognisable way.

Walking along Fifth Avenue this week I saw this ad which provoked an initial reaction of, “what a rip-off of Abercrombie & Fitch!!” On closer inspection, I realised it was in fact a subtly endorsed A&F sub-brand. But with the master brand look so slavishly replicated, why bother at all – isn’t it just a mirror image of the parent brand?

What those in the know understand, and I had to find out, is that Hollister targets teen “surfers” (aged 14-18) with a mid-range price tag, against a slightly older and pricier target for the parent brand. Now, it’s always nice for the kids to look like the parents, but this design seems to me to be a bit too much of a clone.

With the brand’s profits down in the last year ( source: BNET UK, 18 Feb 2010 ), does this junior version open up the market or, by being an apple that has fallen so close to the tree, does it risk putting off the older consumers – nobody likes their younger siblings borrowing their clothes after all.

With all these buff Anglo-Saxon boys, A&F has always, to my eyes, had a hint body fascist about it. There’s arguably some evidence for this in the court case concerning a disabled employee supposedly given stockroom jobs because she did not fit the store’s “look policy” ( source: BBC News Magazine, 26 June 2010 ). So I guess one can expect a certain sameness in the store’s images, but perhaps this was a missed opportunity to go for something a little more diverse?

Below: how the brands stack up…