How lame do you want to be? Lame enough to wear Abercrombie & Fitch?
Abercrombie & Fitch, the one-time sales and fashion star of teen retailing, has yet to show signs of recovery, raising questions about its grip on teen style.
The New Albany, Ohio, company, seller of $40 T-shirts and $90 jeans, was among the worst performers during the holiday season, even with uncharacteristically high levels of discounting. The retailer posted a 19% decline in December sales at stores open at least a year, with its lowest-priced brand, Hollister, down 25% in December from a year earlier.
Retail analysts said Abercrombie’s troubles go beyond pricing to its once unerring sense of style, a problem that could be trickier to fix. The logo T-shirt and torn jeans ensemble that Abercrombie made the unofficial school uniform a decade ago has played out, said Kimberly Greenberger, a retail analyst with Citigroup Inc. who tours malls every two weeks to assess trends. That misstep has created an opening for lower-priced competitors such as Aeropostale Inc. and American Eagle Outfitters Inc., which reported December sales gains of 10% and 7%, respectively.
“The look is stale,” Ms. Greenberger said. “They need to figure out what the next hot trend is and push that, because that’s the only way out of this downward spiral.”
The way out is to market clothing to people like me.
I’m 65, but I’m a stylish man. I wear boat shoes without socks (although, when it gets cold, I switch to my LL Bean slippers, the kind that cover my ankles because I cannot abide wearing socks). I wear a blue shirt, tan khakis or duck pants, and it looks great on my frame. I’m still under 190 pounds and I’m tall. The ladies have always liked my flair.
I used to wear this shirt:

Talk about being cut perfectly for my frame. This shirt made me look good. Alas, when we were in the Caribbean last year, I was chased by two men on St. Kitts and they roughed me up pretty good, tearing the pocket and the seam on the right side of the shirt. I went to get another one, but they didn’t have my size.
Most of what Abercrombie & Fitch has to offer doesn’t really work for me. Too preppy. I’m sensitive to being called a preppy. You call me a preppy, and we’re going to rock and roll, sir. There’s nothing between us but space and opportunity, and time is on my side. I am locked, cocked, and ready to rock.
Back in the day, I would wear the Abercrombie & Fitch along with everything else, and it was fine. Then, they started pushing their clothing towards people in their teens and twenties. Guess what, Poindexter? Those people don’t have jobs anymore. They’re broke. They can’t afford this stuff anymore. And, more to the point, their parents are broke. The trust funds and investment portfolios took a righteous beating. This is all well documented. Back in the old, old day, such as it was, of course I wore husky boy pants. Yes, I went through a sensitive period where I was a tad bit overweight and not as tall as I am now. Those were days of rage, days of tears. I split the rear seat out of a number of pairs of pants, simply by being as frisky as I was known to be.
Don’t listen to these old dingbats. They’re so broke, McDonald’s won’t honor their layaway plan anymore. Snap!
It’s not about what a shirt costs. It’s about whether or not wearing it works for what I’m presenting on any given day. The presentation that is me doesn’t go down the Abercrombie & Fitch path anymore. I have moved on, primarily because they abandoned me. They abandoned the only customers they once had who still have money.
Some business plan, huh?