Aberscrawny & Fitch
While running some office errands today I experienced one of those priceless New York moments where the absurdly chic meets blue-collar reality. I was at the corner 56 and 5th Avenue waiting for a light to change when I found myself in front of the Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store. A tall, gangly 20 year old boy with jeans slung low around his hips stood shirtless in the doorway feeling very good about himself while dance music spilled out the doors of the store into the middle of the 5th Avenue workday afternoon. Our scrawny hero flirted with a female employee whose job apparently it was to writhe to the beat of the dance music occasionally rubbing her body against the shirtless boy. Two other boys (with shirts) stood guard at either side of the doorway completing the posse while one of them groped another female employee as she passed by.
I couldn't help wondering how much these kids were getting paid for this gig. The whole thing just smacked of desperate corporate promotion of an ideal that only exists in the pages of a catalog. It felt contrived and ridiculous. As ridiculous as Abercrombie's youth-obsessed current branding founder, Michael S. Jeffries, a 60 year old man who dyes his hair beach boy blond and wears shorts or torn jeans with flip flops to work no matter what the weather. In Ohio.
I couldn't help wondering how much these kids were getting paid for this gig. The whole thing just smacked of desperate corporate promotion of an ideal that only exists in the pages of a catalog. It felt contrived and ridiculous. As ridiculous as Abercrombie's youth-obsessed current branding founder, Michael S. Jeffries, a 60 year old man who dyes his hair beach boy blond and wears shorts or torn jeans with flip flops to work no matter what the weather. In Ohio.
As I stood there trying to figure out who's buying this non-sense anymore, an MTA bus pulled up at the light in front of me. The swarthy driver looked toward the Abercrombie doorway with disgust and honked the horn a couple times. He opened the door of the bus and said to me "Tell that dude he's got no guns!" With that the driver pulled back the short sleeve of his uniform shirt, flexed a thick beefy bicep and flashed me a smile. Somewhat taken aback by the brawny display I failed to relay the message to the shirtless boy that "Hey, the bus driver is hotter than you!" though I wish I had. Given the choice, I definitely would have gone with the bus driver. Take that, Aberscrawny.
Labels: Consumerism, Only In New York
posted by Michael @ 4:14 PM
9 Comments:
Great, great story. You've definitely captured the absurdity :)
Love it! Such a great story.
Hehehe. Great post!
Michael,
I LOVE THIS!
You just made my day.
Thank you,
Jimmy
They need some hunky middle aged men with muscles.
That story is classic! To be honest, I never found the A&F guys all that hot (ok except for those twins).
Sadly, it's much the same at the London store too.
Let's all open an "Abercrombie & Butch", staffed by decently-built guys with biceps and a much wider age range. I'd love to shop there!
What I hate most about the A&F staff is the blind self-love. Who needs customers, when you love yourself so much? lol
What a great post! In case we forgot how much we missed you while you were sick..... Welcome back.
As they say, only in New York. I've never seen a hot bus driver, but I've ridden with a couple of cab drivers who were hot. And I've been tempted to set fire to my apartment after seeing the firemen who work in my neighborhood.
Post a Comment
<< Home