The documentary about the fashion brand that made millennials fall in love and was eclipsed accused of racism

The brand had existed since 1892 — Teddy Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway bought fishing gear and shaving cream there — but, dependent on fashion, it lost its charm and was probably on its way to extinction when it was bought by Leslie Wexler, retail magnate, owner of Victoria's Secret among other brands, and financier for Jeffrey Epstein. It was 1988 and four years later, to relaunch it on its centenary, he hired Mike Jeffries as CEO.

Abercrombie & Fitch became, by his hand, the favorite brand of millennials growing up in the 1990s and 2000s. Jeffries turned it into a cool clothing line, a sign of status at first glance, an allusion to the devastating sexuality of the college boy who is a member of a fraternity. The photos of Bruce Weber in the bags and the A&F spaces in the malls showed the carved abdominals of young whites with the iliac crests in sight, the pants low, very low.

A Netflix documentary follows the rise of A&F with Jeffries and its shattering fall, following numerous accusations of racism in its products (T-shirts with legends against the Asian community, for example) and in its business practices: employees could not wear their hair in dreadlocks, they were classified by the color of the skin (those in the public service had to be white) and a woman in hijab violated the “appearance policy” of the house. Other forms of discrimination were also exercised: the brand did not offer large sizes, for example.

On Target: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch (White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch) by Alison Klayman (Jagged, The Brink) spins interviews with former HR managers, designers and F&F employees to reconstruct the history of Jeffries' management and his obsession with the attractive, muscular boys, thin teenage girls and exclusivity, all wrapped up in a mystique of the American essence. Journalists and academics also analyze the events that led to Jeffries's resignation after successive scandals.

Everything was going more than well in 1996, when A&F went public. In 2002, protests began over racist and sexist slogans (“Who needs brains when you have this,” said the front of a girls' t-shirt) and for bringing out a line of thongs aimed at pre-adolescent girls. In 2003, a group of former employees filed a class action suit for racial discrimination, and Jeffries negotiated the payment of $50 million to avoid trial.

In 2006, in one of the few interviews he gave, the CEO committed syncericide: “The truth is that yes, we target cool kids. We targeted the 100% American and attractive guy, with a great attitude and a lot of friends,” he told Salon. “Our clothes are not for everyone, nor could they be. Are we exclusive? Of course.”

Over the course of 88 minutes Klayman does an exercise in nostalgia — in which the soundtrack obviously plays a great role — while dissecting what effect A&F's proposals had on yesterday's teenagers, who resolved the insecurities of their bodies in front of those perfect torsos or XS sizes and measured their level of cool by how much they could spend money on clothes.

The director records how abstract elements, such as standards of beauty or structural racism, operate in everyday life by focusing on and reinforcing a company that made money by relying on prejudice. “His brand was discrimination,” says diversity activist Benjamin O'Keefe, who in 2013 put online an invitation to boycott A&F that went viral. “They were based on discrimination at all levels.”

The beginning of the end happened when Samantha Elauf filed a lawsuit for religious discrimination at work: she was not allowed to cover her head. The accumulated scandals so far caused Jeffries to resign in December 2014, just months before Elauf won the final appeal to the Supreme Court on an 8-to-1 vote sentence. Also the brand's star photographer, Weber, was accused by more than 20 models of sexual violence and exploitation.

Jeffries — who refused to participate in the documentary — had an extravagant personality that adds to the narrative an unpleasant executive director very much in tune with other productions of the time, such as WeCrashed, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber or The Dropout. But the focus of the documentary is not the CEO's 40 pages of instructions for flying on his private A&F jet (including what underwear pilots should wear and which seats fit their dogs), his abundant aesthetic surgeries or the mysterious influence of Matthew Smith, his partner, on the company, where he was not, however, employee. Klayman looks further: to the corporate structure that allowed discrimination, and made money from it.

Abercrombie & Fitch hired Fran Horowitz as the new CEO in 2017. Since then the brand sells large sizes and has tried to reformulate its image towards inclusion and the generation of centennials.

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