Lifestyle

The 13 Most Ridiculous Things Mike Jeffries, CEO Of Abercrombie & Fitch, Has Said

by Eddie Cuffin

Mike Jeffries, the controversial CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, has done it again. Recently, he has been chastised by the media for his comments pertaining to the type of people he wants wearing his clothes.

Talk about being bold and building a brand image, Mike said he only wants good-looking people to wear his clothes and that there is no room for fat people in his company. It looks like he's on the fast track to losing customers.

This is not the first time Mike's mouth has gotten him in trouble. Here are the 13 most ridiculous things Mike Jeffries has said over the years:

On being popular:

"In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids."

On good-looking people:

"That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people.

On belonging:

"A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong."

On being exclusive:

"Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla."

On alienating people:

"You don't alienate anybody, but you don't excite anybody, either"

On the demographic he prefers:

"Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong"

On whom the company is interested in marketing to:

"Abercrombie is only interested in people with washboard stomachs who look like they're about to jump on a surfboard"

On crossing the line:

"Listen, do we go too far sometimes? Absolutely. But we push the envelope, and we try to be funny, and we try to stay authentic and relevant to our target customer."

On little girls' underwear:

"People said we were cynical, that we were sexualizing little girls. But you know what? I still think those are cute underwear for little girls. And I think anybody who gets on a bandwagon about thongs for little girls is crazy. Just crazy! There's so much craziness about sex in this country. It's nuts! I can see getting upset about letting your girl hang out with a bunch of old pervs, but why would you let your girl hang out with a bunch of old pervs?"

On his customers:

"I don't want our core customers to see people who aren't as hot as them wearing our clothing."

On people outside of his customer base:

"I really don't care what anyone other than our target customer thinks."

On Abercrombie's ambiguous sexuality:

"I think that what we represent sexually is healthy. It's playful. It's not dark. It's not degrading! And it's not gay, and it's not straight, and it's not black, and it's not white. It's not about any labels. That would be cynical, and we're not cynical! It's all depicting this wonderful camaraderie, friendship, and playfulness that exist in this generation and, candidly, does not exist in the older generation."

On his personal style:

"Dude, I'm not an old fart who wears his jeans up at his shoulders.”