The rise and fall of Abercrombie

During last Wednesday's class discussion on hegemony, it seemed that a lot of the examples raised in class were fashion based. As I listened to the discussion and tried to keep up with the references to designer labels, my bias against all things fashion began to come out. I left class feeling like any amount of time discussing fashion and its relevancy in our lives was time ill spent. As I have thought more about the concept of hegemony and looked for examples in my life and in popular culture to demonstrate it, I began to realize that fashion has indeed played a large part in my life, and that it was foolish for me to think it did not matter.

Today, I read an article about how clothing company Abercrombie and Fitch is being sued for religious discrimination. That article lead me to another about Abercrombie's abysmal sales throughout the recession. What piqued my interest in these stories was that in middle school and early high school wearing A&F clothing was really important to me, despite the fact that I could rarely afford them. At the time wearing a too-tight shirt that said "Abercrombie" on it had a lot to do with how I felt others perceived me. This is exactly why fashion, or more precisely labels, are such a great example of hegemony. Somehow the thought was put into my brain that wearing cheap clothes that I paid a lot of money for made me cool.

I would argue that Abercrombie was able to tell middle schoolers its brand was cool by crafting an "authentic" prep look, filling its stores and catalogs with skinny, white people who just seemed cool, and by making their clothes expensive regardless of the fact that you bought them in a mall. Despite the branding and the hegemony that Abercrombie has masterfully crafted, it is backfiring. And since I was always too poor to buy their clothes when I was younger, I have to admit I'm enjoying watching their fall.

As James' post from last week mentioned, their teen chain Hollister is simply out of touch with what is going on around them. And as this Time article points out the recession is playing a big part in teens' decisions to reject the hegemony of Abercrombie. So are their declining sales an indicator of counter-hegemony? I'd like to believe so. Because if it is, there will inevitably be fewer 11 year old girls who think that the only way to look cool is by buying 30 dollar tee shirts and a 90 dollar pair of jeans. Here's hoping the new trend in middle school fashions will be wearing whatever your mother can afford.