On 29 Jul 2003 08:45:00 GMT, leah (Charlie Self)
wrote:

....snip
But the best friend I've ever had is an avid shooter, hunter and was almost
world class in fly fishing (did some super fly tying to, back in the "old days"
when he augmented his freelance writing income tying flies for Abercrombie &
Fitch).

If the current Abercrombie and Fitch isn't a perfect example of what
Tom's origianal was illustrating, I don't know what is...

The current A&F sells nothing that cannot be used by urban-teens-with
too-much-money to adorn themselves with clothing that looks like it
used to be worn by someone who loved the outdoors before _they_ got
ahold of it.

True story...
The time: Just-before-Christmas, two years ago.
The place: The local Mall-for-the-self-absorbed.

My daughter tells me that what my teenaged son would probably
reeeeeely love for Christmas is a sweater from Abercrombie and Fitch.
Fine. I hate malls, but love my kid, so off I go to retail hell in
search of said sweater. Now, since I'm a GUY, I don't really shop all
that well, so I did what I always do-- I looked around at all the
manequins and grabbed one of the "I-always-wear-my-A&F-baseball-caps
with-the-frayed-brim-on-backwards" sales dweebs to set me up with the
clothes on the mannequin. Gave him my son's sizes and got ready to
unload the credit card on the counter, when the kid says:

(Are you ready? You need to be sitting for this...)

"Sir, we don't actchowally haaave those clothes."

I swear to God, I am not making this up. I asked;
"What do you _MEAN?_ How can you _not_ have the clothes you're
advertising on your displays???"

He looked at me like I was from the land-of-the-tragically-unhip, and
informed me that "Corporate has someone dress all the mannequins, so
that we have a consistant image. We don't necessarily have the
clothes we show on the mannequins."

I looked at him like he was from the land-of-the-soon-to-be-unemployed
and informed him since I was IN marketing, I'd love to inform the
manager that I was NOT pleased to be duped into entering their store
for what turned out to be nothing more or less than false advertising.

The fact that he used the word "corporate" in a sentence should have
been a clue... He _was_ the manager.

Like lathes, I'm telling you,
Mssrs. A&F must be spinning in their graves like lathes.

Michael Baglio
(who now shops exclusively at the tragically un-hip Land's End.com)
Chapel Hill