Abercrombie and Fitch: Hemingway's Shotgun to a Jersey Shore Payout

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Abercrombie & Fitch was founded in Manhattan in 1892 by David T. Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch as an elite outfitter for explorers and the wealthy. It supplied Theodore Roosevelt's safaris and Admiral Richard E. Byrd's Antarctic expedition, and it sold Ernest Hemingway the shotgun he used to end his life. As cheaper outdoor competitors appeared, the company clung to its upper crust image, stocking items like an 18 karat gold and onyx chess set in the 1970s, and went bankrupt in 1976. Oshman Sporting Goods bought the name and its prized mailing list for $1.5 million, and in 1988 Les Wexner's L Brands bought the brand.

In 1992 Wexner hired Mike Jeffries as CEO, who built a strategy of "casual luxury" and stores designed to exclude: shuttered windows, club music at about 90 decibels, Fierce cologne pumped through the vents and shirtless greeters. A 2006 interview in which Jeffries said the brand targeted the attractive, popular kids, offensive graphic tees, a $40 million employment settlement in 2004 and an 8 to 1 Supreme Court loss in 2015 over a job applicant's hijab defined the era. In 2023, allegations of sex trafficking were published against Jeffries and his partner, which the company said it was horrified by. Jeffries was out by 2014, and Fran Horowitz, CEO from 2017, rebuilt the brand around brighter stores, inclusive sizing and an adult customer.

• The bankrupt company's most valuable asset was its mailing list of wealthy customers, bought by a Texas chain for $1.5 million.
• In 2011 the company offered a Jersey Shore cast member and his castmates money specifically not to wear its clothes on camera.
• In 2005 a women's group in Pennsylvania organized a "girlcott" against T-shirts with slogans demeaning women.
• A 2009 UK employment tribunal ruled against the company after a worker with a prosthetic arm was moved to the stockroom.
• The rebuilt brand became the NFL's first official fashion partner, starting in 2026.