I'M NOT sure about you, but I just can't remember the last time I walked past the Rotunda and saw a group of close-to-naked students climbing all over each other while pretending to play football. In fact, seeing such a spectacle would more than likely draw confused and mocking stares from the majority of the U.Va. population. So why does clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch portray such absurd incidents in their Back to School 2001 Catalog as the very essence of college life? Simple: to use sex to distract consumers from their overpriced, generic clothes, and to turn a large profit.
Granted, there is no problem with a company's main objective being to bring in profit. After all, the competitive nature of this country's economic system is what allows our nation to flourish. However, when a company begins to intentionally manipulate the minds of young consumers in a way that is detrimental to those individuals, the line must be drawn. The student body can help stop this trend by avoiding shopping at the new Abercrombie & Fitch store opening at Barracks Road Shopping Center.
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Abercrombie & Fitch claims that its intended market is men and women between the ages of 18 and 22. The company employs what is called a "soft sell" as its method of advertisement. This means that it focuses more on the lifestyle it wishes to portray, as opposed to concentrating on the quality and durability of their clothes. Soft advertising tries to sell an ideal, a fantasy.
Those of us who actually attend college know that there's a lot more to higher education than undersized polo shirts, muddy co-ed frisbee competitions and games of "naked twister," as is portrayed in the 2000 Abercrombie Holiday Catalog. Having actually experienced college, we have the knowledge and the sense to see through this highly transparent advertising. The fantasy doesn't work on us because experience teaches us better. Abercrombie & Fitch knows this.
Don't be fooled by the new shrink-wrap that encases Abercrombie catalogs. Don't be fooled by the claim that one must be over 18 to buy or receive a catalog in the mail. Especially don't be fooled by the assertion that by removing direct reference to alcohol from the catalogs, the company has bowed to the desires of parents nationwide and cleaned up its act.
The suggestion of alcohol remains in the catalog: Half of the models look like they are in a drunken stupor. Few, if any, girls would run around topless when they are sober. Abercrombie evidently took its alleged removal of alcohol from its "magalog" - as the company has so cleverly dubbed it - as justification for adding yet more sex. Abercrombie catalogs now feature - as if the pages upon pages of half-naked models were not enough - interviews with porn stars. And oh yeah - clothes.
As college students, we should not be offended by the sight of other half-naked college students. We should not be offended by the mention of alcohol, or the suggestion of pre-marital sex. We should, however, be offended by Abercrombie's dishonesty in its claims of who it is marketing to, and the company's irresponsibility and blatant disregard for all but profit in their advertising.
Despite all that Abercrombie executives may say on record about their targeted consumers, the company knows who it is marketing to, and while the college-age population might be encompassed in that group, we are by no means its only constituents. We have the experience and maturity to discern for ourselves what is fact and what is fiction in these advertisements, but students in high school, middle school and even upper elementary school are shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch, and making up a huge if not dominant portion of the store's patrons.
The younger these kids get, the more vulnerable they are to the potential negative effects of Abercrombie's advertising. Look through the pages of a recent Abercrombie catalog, and it's clear that this company is glorifying a lifestyle that encompasses - among other things - alcohol abuse and promiscuity. Such values instilled in young people will reap negative behavior either now or in the future.
It is time that this came to a halt. Abercrombie needs to stop running its company like the out-of-control teenagers it glorifies and find a new way to sell clothes. Just because we live in a profit-driven society doesn't mean that there is no place for moral responsibility. Lt. Gov. Corrine Wood (R-IL) actually has started a "StopAandF" campaign. The pleas of parents across the country have done little to deter the company from its immoral conduct.
It is obvious that the only language Abercrombie executives speak is that of profit, and therefore it is our responsibility as Abercrombie's proclaimed market to send the company a message about what it is doing. We as a student body should consider the many other clothing options that we have as consumers before we head back into Abercrombie. Stores such as Britches, Old Navy, The Gap and Banana Republic market similar products, and lack the questionable advertising techniques employed by Abercrombie. In doing this, we can show Abercrombie & Fitch that we are not impressed with nor fooled by its transparent attempts to masque poor products with flashy and inappropriate advertising.
(Laura Parcells' column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at lparcells@cavalierdaily.com.)
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