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I didn’t know there was a profile for guys who would commit battery and sexual assault. Like BB, I would like to know know if you have any data to back this up. This is no different than to say, “a woman wearing a low cut shirt must be a slut.”</p>
<p>There are tens of thousands of men who shop at A&F. Is the majority of them rapists? Your personal experience (of an anonymous poster on a message board) is not indicative of the whole group unless you have solid data to back up that statement. If I say that the few guys with tattoos I know are total losers, would that cause you to jump to the defence of all tattooed people? 
</p>
<p>Romani, do you think burkas prevent date rape?</p>
<p>Nope, bb, I don’t. Just like I don’t think that short skirts cause date rape. Rapists cause rape. As I already said. It’s the culture, not the clothes.</p>
<p>
Not a single one, no - there is no population you could create that would not have some percentage of violent or sexual offenders.</p>
<p>
It actually has nothing to do with the clothes themselves, just the target demographic. If I was marketing a product line specifically to appeal to a fantasy of violence and drugs, would you not expect that the real customers would have a higher incidence of violence and drug abuse? A&F is marketing to appeal to a fantasy of money, sex, and power, and in my experience the men who chase that fantasy are more likely to chase into trouble.</p>
<p>Romani, of cause you dont. I “know” you from your posts. Women and men should be free to walk naked without any fear (uhm, not really, because that would be unsanitary. :)).</p>
<p>I think it is not the “culture”, it is the disconnect between what we say our values are and what we do that causes a lot of problems.</p>
<p>
Don’t know. All I know is my personal experience, the marketing campaign, and the words of the owner. The majority might well be fine, but I think this store is meant to appeal to the same parts of them that might think that they have a right to sex.</p>
<p>
Is there any point where I have indicated that I was presenting a scientifically-backed study of male A&F customers? I have said “in my experience” or “in my opinion” enough times on here already that I am not sure what you are hoping to do. If you want to change my opinion, this is not the way to do it.</p>
<p>
No, it would cause me to point out my own experiences that contradict yours and offer them as an alternative viewpoint - something that you have not done. If all the men you know who shop at A&F are choir boys who have no greater sins than their non-A&F peers, then feel free to say so.</p>
<p>Now you are also comparing apples to oranges here - if you had said that everyone who got tattoos or piercings at a particular parlor (or chain of parlors) were total losers, I would seriously question whether or not that parlor (or chain of parlors) was indeed attracting losers.</p>
<p>My personal experience contradict yours as well. No choir boys (are we being judgemental here again?), but guys who wear polo shirts with A&F logos are well-educated techie types with nice families.</p>
<p>“and the words of the owner”</p>
<p>Who owns A&F? it is possible that if you have a pension plan, you own, owned, or will own a part of it.</p>
<p>[ANF:</a> Summary for Abercrombie & Fitch Company Com- Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ANF%2C+&ql=0]ANF:”>http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ANF%2C+&ql=0)</p>
<p>I don’t know.</p>
<p>My husband just likes the way the shorts fit him and the fatiques.</p>
<p>He doesn’t shop. I get them for him. He got them for a present from his mother one year and has stuck with them for the fit.</p>
<p>He also wears Levi jeans. He started wearing them when he was a kid.</p>
<p>His suits are Brooks Brothers because that’s what he wore when he started wearing suits. His salesperson calls him each season to ask him which suits he wants made and they send them over.</p>
<p>He never date raped me.</p>
<p>carry on.</p>
<p>LOl, poetgirl. Mr B likes Burberry and RL polos. I have to search the web to see what guys who wear that stuff do to their ladies. :D</p>
<p>
This is the part where I attack you because your personal experience cannot possibly be valid, right?</p>
<p>
Great! Not my experience, and not what I see in the marketing. And also not what comes to mind in the stores.</p>
<p>
Misspoke. I mean the CEO, the guy who directs the marketing and the message, not the people who own it.</p>
<p>LOL BB!</p>
<p>H wears the polos and shirts from RL. Also a Burberry overcoat.</p>
<p>Of course, as I said, he does not shop. Have to look on the internet to see what women who buy those things for their men do to their men. ;)</p>
<p>
Then I wouldn’t have any questions about him.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is Mr. B aware that in Britain, Burberry has been so popularly associated with the underclass Chav subculture that the company has taken great pains to try disassociating themselves there? </p>
<p>Somehow, I can’t picture your spouse being subject to an ASBO by the British judicial authorities for hooliganism. :D</p>
<p>
In all fairness, the entire point of this thread is that A&F is taking great pains to disassociate themselves from the poor and not-thin, to the point of burning clothes rather than let them go to poor people. If you do not have a problem with that I can hardly think that Burberry’s actions would give you pause.</p>
<p>poetgrl, we need to team up. I buy an array of stuff from Nordie on sale, and Mr B picks what he likes. The rest gets sent back to the store. Cobrat, of course I have seen that. Same as RL is “associated” with certain things here. :)</p>
<p>See, cosmicfish? That is exactly what i wanted to say about your logic. You do agree that making conclusions based on one’s personal anecdotal experience without backing them up with solid data is full of flaws? Good, we are on the same page.</p>
<p>Up to 90% of prison population, according to some studies, have tattoos. What can be concluded from this? See?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Please read the first post I made on this thread to get my views on A & F.</p>
<p>I really have no problem with A&F doing what they are doing. It is a business making a business decision. I do not shop there (they do not meet my criteria of price/quality while RL and Burberry and Hugo Boss do) and would not purchase their stock (I might have it in my 401(k) mutual funds FwIK). If you do not like what they do, take your business elsewhere, as I do - luckily, there are plenty of other choices. As I said, their CEO is trying to use Richard Branson’s marketing tactics, but he lacks RB 's charisma and reputation. There are plenty of other stores that sell stuff that could be labeled as “slutty” or “rapist attractant” by some posters - the only difference is that their CEOs keep quiet.</p>
<p>BB,None of the women in our family wear A&F. If you can find something my husband looks good in that he would prefer I would buy it. But, it’s that or Dockers. I prefer the fatiques and the shorts for him.</p>
<p>If you dig into the clothing industry, and what they have to do to get it made, we should probably all be walking around naked. </p>
<p>Otherwise spending a fortune. I’m in favor of the spending a fortune, but affordable clothes in the US generally have a relatively unsavory labor past, as does most electronics.</p>
<p>Sad but true.</p>
<p>BB, have you read Branson’s books?</p>
<p>I gave them to my oldest daughter.</p>
<p>
I did not offer logic. I offered an opinion based on personal experience, marketing, and the words of the CEO. Big difference. I would argue that my opinion is not tremendously far off from what the CEO wants me to think.</p>
<p>
I am also using the marketing and the words of the CEO. Do I think that this is inherently flawed? Yes… but I do not have access to the total data set and never will any more than you will. I assume that the millions of dollars that the CEO has spent to market his products around sex, power, and money are spent successfully and not foolishly. In other words, either his marketing is wasted or he is catching his market. And since I (like many people I suspect) have a negative view of those strongly drawn to that triangle of sex, power, and money, I would argue that my reaction to this franchise is an inevitable result.</p>
<p>
That among criminals, tattoos are highly valued. Are tattoos only marketed towards criminals? Or, putting it another way, can I find A&F clothing that is marketed towards people who are disinterested in their appearance or sexual appeal, and who do not want to spend so much for a shirt?</p>
<p>Tattoos, being an entire industry, are too broad for comparison to A&F, a single retail chain. A better comparison would be prison tattooists, or perhaps tattoos (or stores) espousing a specific message. Because I would certainly have an opinion on a tattoo parlor whose advertising all centered around “GET YOUR TRAMP STAMP HERE”.</p>