Shirtless muscle men promote Abercrombie & Fitch in Japan
Abercrombie & Fitch opened its first store in Japan several days ago, using shirtless male models to draw media attention:
The Japan Times has some good quotes from David Marx and Kensuke Kojima:
“A&F is coming in the middle of a wave of fast-fashion brands, so consumers may be disappointed to find out that it’s not cheap like the others,” Marx said.
Kensuke Kojima, president of Tokyo-based apparel consultancy firm Kojima Fashion Marketing Co., also said Abercrombie’s long-established “WASPy (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) and masculine image” does not match the current Japanese market trend for nonaggressive styles.
“This is my favorite brand,” Kojima said. “But (Abercrombie’s) fashion emphasizing the sculpted bodily beauty of the Greek and Roman times will not be embraced in present-day Japan.”
As you can see from the news video, some customers left the store unsatisfied. Several people complained about how the interior was too dark, and one girl says the darkness caused to to make a mistake in choosing the color of a pair of pants. Another customers, who claims he is a fan of A&F, says he was excited about the visiting store but ended up buying nothing because the prices were too high.
A nearby H&M store shrewdly held a 50% off sale on the same day, stealing some of the media attention and drawing a lot of deal-seeking customers.
[hat tip to Marxy]
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Muscle men? I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil.
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Geez.. I just had some flashbacks of watching FIGHT CLUB!
Just the scene where Brad Pitt asks Ed Norton. “Is that what a man looks like?”
quick question: Which Japanese Politian would you fight?!
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I liked that clap on back every customer gets when entering shop. Thats the difference between unpersonality of department stores and warm, personal welcome of this shop.
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That’s weird that it’s dark in there. I worked at Abercombie and Fitch Men’s at Ala Moana Mall in Hawaii during highschool and it wasn’t dark at all, but if you go to Holster it’s like a freaking cave in there. We would pull in about 20,000 dollars a day on average, mostly Japanese and white tourists, along with some random asian actors.
Truthfully I think the clothes suck and I have the 8th and fierce cologne burned into my nose for life. Those guys who pose with their shirts off make like 13 bucks an hour but don’t work full shifts( if you call that working). Only cool thing was that sometimes Japanese girls would come in just to hit on you or take pictures with you.
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Oh, good old racist anything-for-a-headline-since-our-clothes-are-so-bland A&F. After all the anti-A&F protests by Asian and Asian-American students on campuses here in California a few years ago, the current batches of students wear the brand name blithely splashed across their chests…
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I’ve always disliked the advertising for A&F. There’s something ironic about ads where the male models refuse to wear the clothes they’re promoting.
“What’s the picture of a naked man all about?”
“See that rag in the background, it’s a shirt they want you to buy.”
Let’s face it A&F ads are really just soft-core porn for women.
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I’ve always disliked their treatment of minorities and the disabled.
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STOP PRETENDING IT’S ABOUT CLOTHES. IT’S ABOUT HALF-NAKED MEN.
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The company got into trouble several years ago with its long history of discriminating racial hiring policy.
I just looked at their corporate website and just had to laugh. They show Milan flagship store video link at the front page but there is no mentioning at all about the Tokyo store, let alone any footage of Ginza store opening. Am I reading too much here about their preference of what they want to represent and what they don’t want as a brand? I continue my preference not stepping into their stores globally. Yes,I am too old for the brand anyway.
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The store just opened a few days before your post so the video wasn`t up yet. The Ginza video is now on the main site while about a week after the opening in Tokyo the video was on the associate portal site with different music.
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When are they ever going to realize that A&F is not for Japanese people…Even know they are known to be the capital of the world for wearing ugly clothes.. The models arent jacked or anything, they’re just skinny and so the muscles show up.. A&F is an American brand, but when you go in there, its not American at all… You try to go up to someone and ask them a question in English, they cant answer you… How American is that?? Plus the dudes are all ugly…A&F in Japan will not last long…
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You think Hollister or Tommy Bahama aren’t any better? Since there are good number of terrific looking Japanese ladies, a Victoria’s Secret!
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