Mike Jeffries, CEO of the popular mall clothing chain Abercrombie & Fitch, and one of the only openly gay business leaders in the U.S., has resigned from his position after years of bad press and slumping sales.
70-year-old Jeffries has never been shy about expressing his douchey opinions to the media — from saying the company only hired “good-looking” employees (“[G]ood-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people,” Jeffries said. “We don’t market to anyone other than that.”), to claiming it doesn’t make large sizes because he doesn’t want “fat” or “unpopular” people wearing their clothes (“Abercrombie is only interested in people with washboard stomachs who look like they’re about to jump on a surfboard,” he claimed).
This week, Jeffries and his spray-on tan announced he will be immediately quitting the company’s board of directors and stepping down as CEO.
Jeffries first joined A&F in 1992, when the company still sold sporting equipment, fishing gear, and outdoor clothing. In just a few short years, he rebranded it into the all-American fashion line it is today, ditching the middle-aged men with fishing poles for d-bag frat boys and their gaggles of barely-clothed female admirers. And as a result, sales skyrocketed as upper middle class suburban teenagers flocked to their local shopping malls to shovel out $150 for A&F hoodies, ripped jeans and rubber flip flops.
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In recent years, however, revenues, profits, and share prices began to crumble. Sales dropped 12 percent last quarter and online traffic dwindled, while the company slashed its profit forecasts. Reports of A&F’s “cult-like atmosphere” surfaced after a journalist visited the company’s headquarters in Ohio and reported that it was staffed entirely by youthful men and woman clad in Abercrombie flip-flops and jeans. And then there was that whole story about Jeffries’ diva-like demands while aboard his private Gulfstream G550. A 47-page manual detailed the precise seating locations for Jeffries’ dogs, and cabin crew was instructed to respond to all of his requests with a laid-back “no problem.” In addition to that, A&F perfume had to be regularly spritzed around the cabin, the carpets had to be vacuumed in perfectly regimented lines, and the entire crew had to be made up of only attractive male models.
“It has been an honor to lead this extraordinarily talented group of people,” Jeffries told A&F employees this week. “I am extremely proud of your accomplishments.”
He added: “I believe now is the right time for new leadership to take the company forward to the next phase of its development.”
No word yet on what Jeffries plans to do next, or who will be hired to replace him.
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Cam
What is up with his eyes? That plastic surgeon needs to have his license revoked.
Ladbrook
Another creepy a$$hole with more money than sense who also happens to be gay. Maybe he can work for Chris Hughes. Good riddance.
redcarpet30
Awww. Poor baby.
Shame he will probably have a golden parachute and can still comfortable live in his 20 year old white college jock orgy fantasy land.
Alan down in Florida
So what next? Boring catalogues?
Ladbrook
@Alan down in Florida: Maybe he can do for Sears what he did for Abercrombie: Kenmore washers & dryers for pretty white boys with big muscles and thick… uhm… packages.
Saint Law
He looks like a beautiful adolescent boy who’s lain at the bottom of the Hudson for months.
DennisBTR
So I guess we now know for sure that 70 is TOFA.
Garrett
Whoa. Plastic surgery overload. I wonder if he realizes that the boys who bend over for him do it only because he has lots and lots of money.
darian
@Saint Law: Oh damn!!!! I gotta say you throw premium shade keep it up. This has been a good day no more Bachmann and Jefferies.
SportGuy
@redcarpet30:
LMAO! Exactly, so pathetic.
QJ201
Another Narcisissy giving the rest of us a bad name
Blackceo
A&F’s glory days are long gone. I rocked it heavily in high school in the early to mid 90s and like freshman year of college. Once the racial discrimination stories came out about their hiring practices they didnt see another cent from me. This guy is a douche in the worst way. Good riddance.
Johnny
Good. He can go back in the crypt for another 100 years, as can his horribly-priced, shoddily-made clothing.
CoachS
Yeah sales are off. Those “upper middle class suburban teenagers (who) flocked to their local shopping malls to shovel out $150 for A&F hoodies, ripped jeans and rubber flip flops” are now 15 or 20 years older and 1) can’t fit into the size range that stops with a child large 2) have grown wiser about the concept of spending 50 bucks on a “pre-washed” (and ripped) t-shirt 3) won’t hand money over to their kids to buy this crap.
The guy’s a “plastic surgery gone bad” piece of work. I hope the new CEO brings back the shotguns and fishing gear. I have a great side-by-side that they made in the 1960s.
Hermes
@Ladbrook: Er, out of curiosity what do you have against Chris Hughes? Chris Hughes is trying to save an old and respected Leftist publication which, frankly, has been hemorrhaging money for years, not just bleeding. Chris Hughes, as far as I know, treats others with respect and is a decent man … and as much as some doctrinaire leftists hate what he’s doing with the magazine, I’m glad to see anyone willing to shell out the millions required to salvage it in any form. So what again are your problems with him?
Hermes
andy0529
….This guy banned his clothes from being on any gay themed show, “Will and Grace” and “QAF” so I could care less.
Ladbrook
@Hermes: Well, for starters, he tried to buy his husband a congressional seat, which went well, didn’t it? It shows how little he and his husband respect average people and what he thinks about the concept of true representative government. And yes, I felt similarly toward Hillary and Liddy Dole when they did much the same when pursuing senate seats for themselves.
Second, I don’t think Hughes is the least bit interested in “saving” a “respected leftist publication.” To begin with, it’s not particularly leftist in tone, and its reputation as “respected” is debatable. Moreover, I think he bought TNR because he wants to use the name as a launching pad for something else entirely – some sort of Buzzfeed type of enterprise with instant cache because the TNR name is attached to it. He has treated his TNR staff with nothing but disdain, as evidenced by the way he chose to fire Foer. At best, he’s immature and tone deaf, but judging by the way his staff abandoned TNR last week, I’d say he’s probably much much worse.
But yeah, he’s cute. So there’s that, I suppose.