With its stock price and in-store sales in free fall, a humbled Abercrombie & Fitch has decided to relent on its controversial stand against carrying plus-size clothes. Starting next spring, it would “expand sizes, colors and fits,” Reuters reports. The brand will also be adding more accessories and shoe lines in an effort to bring more shoppers into the store.
In 2006, CEO Mike Jeffries justified the no-plus-size clothes policy in an interview with Salon, saying “In every school there are the cool kids and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids…Candidly, we go after the cool kids.” The viral #FitchtheHomeless campaign earlier this year, in which people bought thrift store Abercrombie & Fitch and gave it to the homeless to protest Jeffries’ comments, brought further public relations heat down on the retailer.
A&F reported its seventh straight quarterly drop in same-store sales Wednesday, and its stock price fell 10.4 percent to $34.35, Reuters reports.
[Reuters]