It was seven years ago that retailer Abercrombie + Fitch stopped publishing its popular (and slightly notorious) “magalogue” — The A + F Quarterly — under pressure from the religious right and other censorship forces who found Bruce Weber’s photographs of naked and semi-naked college kids to be pornographic.
The Quarterly had started five years earlier as a catalogue combined with photo layouts and a few articles.
As the publication became more popular, the non-catalogue content expanded and acclaimed photographer Weber pushed the nudity envelope with each new issue.
The publication helped to wrap the retailer in an aura of sexy hipness and to separate it from such competitors as The Gap and Banana Republic.
A + F extended the look of The Quarterly to its shopping bags as well as the decor in its outlets — Bruce Weber’s use of straight-looking college men for homoerotic purposes became one of the biggest advertising “looks” of the turn of the century.
The Quarterly came under increasing fire in 2002 when a Bush II conservative wind started blowing through the zeitgeist (the company canceled the 2001 Christmas edition — after it was printed — fearing a post 9/11 backlash to its sexy frivolity).
Finally, the pressure on the retailer became so intense that the publication was dumped despite the fact that it was getting bigger with each new issue.
Since then, we’ve had a change of administrations in Washington, D.C. and an economic calamity that has devastated A+F and its overpriced casual wear.
Many of the customers who shopped at the store three or four years ago can no longer afford it and have shifted to the same company’s lower priced alternative, Hollisters (the New York outpost at the corner of Houston and Broadway in SoHo — which is more nightclub than store — has become a major tourist destination).
Today, the chain is relaunching The A + F Quarterly, not as a mail-order subscription product, but as a store-purchase-only item designed to get people to return to the retail outlets. Media columnists have reported that the first new issue is 176 pages (a little more than half the size of the final, Christmas 2003 issue) and will go for $10.
The wonderfully snarky blog The Shophound thinks the parade might have long since passed by for the retailer:
“Now that the chain’s sales have stagnated at a dangerously low point, however, it seems that measures must be taken to correct it’s weakened condition, and rather than rethinking and updating the stores’ merchandise, advertising and interiors, the folks at Abercrombie have decided (apparently in the spirit of their unchanging merchandise) to bring back something people used to like around seven years ago… because that always works. Also, after years of stories about how dreadful their stores are to work in and settling numerous lawsuits regarding discrimination and hiring practices, they probably remembered that they really don’t care if they offend anyone.”
