when you're young, you're sold >> by gary baum >> *spark-online issue twelve

"When you're young, you're gold" was Abercrombie & Fitch's marketing tag line last summer, during which time it became one of the most successful brand names in recent history among teenagers with the help of the LFO song "Summer Girls," which claimed that the band liked "girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch." The company's tag line is a motto that most teenagers -- including myself -- would like to believe and one that A&F assumes that we will buy into. Indeed, I did just that when I tried -- and failed -- to live what the company describes as the "A&F lifestyle" one Monday this past spring.

David Abercrombie began A&F in 1892 as an aristocratic sporting goods store, which was known in New York City for the first half of the twentieth-century as a sort of Eddie Bauer for the WASPy set. With the help of Abercrombie's business partner, Ezra Fitch, the two men created what became a widely respected brand.

Today, A&F prides itself on, according to their website, "its tradition of exceptional quality, service and innovation" and as a place to find "the well-made, stylish, and durable goods that Abercrombie & Fitch has been creating for over a hundred years."

In my attempt to feel "gold" I decided that I would have to find, purchase, and wear an A&F t-shirt to my high school for a day to see if, indeed, it made me feel like a member of Abercrombie's artificially-created clique.

First, I searched the website, Abercrombie.com, which features everything from weekly MP3 picks to information on how to become a company model (send your name, number, and a photo by US mail only to: Shahid & Co. Photo Editor 435 Hudson 7th floor New York, NY 100014; there is no need to call -- "If they like what they see, they'll be in touch"). But I soon learned that if I really wanted the true Abercrombie experience, I must take a look at its seasonal catalog.

Around 1910 the company began publishing its catalog, which, according to the website, "featured 456 pages of outdoor gear and clothing." Now that same catalog, known as the "Quarterly," has done away with the "outdoor gear" (A&F has been nothing more than a name since the Carter administration) but kept the clothing. A&F's entire seasonal collection is displayed between pages devoted to the dozens of young, collegiate-looking men and women who grace the pages as they pose in exotic locations for their photo shoots.

The so-called 'magalog' has been the subject of censorship campaigns due to some of their magazine-style content (their winter and spring issues were titled "Naughty or Nice?" and "Wild & Willing" respectively), which includes interviews with porn stars and instructions on how to make alcoholic drinks (not exactly the "sage camping, hunting, and fishing advice" the company proudly claims to have once published).

Anyway, soon enough I found in the Quarterly what I was looking for: a dark blue t-shirt with ABERCROMBIE emblazoned in yellow across the front (it was purposely made to look like it had already been worn twenty times by using a carefully calibrated stone-wash and enzyme treatment that makes everything look 'vintage'). I would have ordered the t-shirt straight from the Quarterly had I been willing to wait. But I was not. I needed it now. So I went to my nearest A&F outlet at the local mall.

Unfortunately, on the Saturday that I visited the store I did not see any of the company's "Abercrombie Greeters" who, supposedly, are every bit as good-looking as the playful models that are featured in the wall-to-wall advertisements around the store.

The Greeters do not have to work very hard to attain their minimum-wage paycheck. They simply have to seem like they are having a good time, say "hey" to incoming shoppers, and look, well, cool. But that is okay. The real jobs, according to Fortune, are handled by "other workers -- less cool and less good-looking -- [who] come in after hours to do the grunt work of counting inventory, restacking tables, and unpacking boxes."

Members of 'Generation Y', such as myself, cannot really blame A&F for only letting us see their most charismatic and attractive employees. After all, "the theme," Time explained last year, "is popularity, and it's packaged, marketed and playing at a mall near you." The company gets teenagers to spend their money by playing into their target demographic's desire to belong to the "beautiful, exclusive world that the Abercrombie image projects."

After navigating through the store I finally located my shirt, paid $29.95 for it, and left. I decided soon after leaving that I would wear my new t-shirt on the following Monday.

Sadly, in the early Monday morning my new t-shirt failed to provide me with the happy-go-lucky "lifestyle" that A&F had subconsciously promised me. I was late to school and I forgot my copy of The Great Gatsby for my English class. However, the tide soon changed. I aced my American history exam on suburban conformity in the 1950s. But later, when a cute, Fitch-clad sophomore smiled at me on my way to Spanish class I had to wonder: "Is it me or this 'vintage' Abercrombie tee?"

I soon began to understand what Salon meant when it said that A&F "sexualizes America's love of the aristocratic golden boy and girl -- the blond, WASPish, Ivy League party animals most recently represented by Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow in The Talented Mr. Ripley." In fact, the characters in my misplaced Fitzgerald novel would have surely shopped at A&F during the Jazz Age, along with a fashionable crowd that included Ernest Hemingway, Amelia Earheart, Greta Garbo, and Teddy Roosevelt. A&F has created the perfect aura around its brand--as if possessing a piece of its clothing entitles the owner to a place in what Time called the company's "technicolor teen lifestyle," filled with "fleece pullovers that are choreographed to present the appearance of effortless cool." The company knows that teenagers long to be wanted, to be a part of A&F's artificially created clique filled with beautiful people having fun all over the world. But I have learned that imported clothes from Cambodia--no matter how expensive--cannot make me or anyone else my age feel "gold." Indeed, we have to somehow manage to feel that way on our own.

Gary Baum is sixteen-years-old and currently attends Calabasas High School in Southern California. He writes a weekly manifesto on media, politics, and culture on the Internet and is currently the Editor-In-Chief of his high school newspaper, the Calabasas Courier.