The CEO behind Abercrombie & Fitch’s turnaround says the retailer isn’t chasing ‘cool’; wants to be a ‘lifestyle’ brand instead
Although it may seem counterintuitive, being trendy can be the bane of a clothing brand. For years, Abercrombie & Fitch was a lifestyle company that told customers what was cool, not the other way around, and it worked. Until it didn’t happen.
A decade ago, the brand that dominated the 2000s and early 2000s collapsed. Customers were turned away by overly sexualized marketing and the leadership’s contemptuous attitude towards shoppers who said they were not cool enough for Abercrombie & Fitch clothing.
So when Abercrombie CEO Fran Horowitz, who previously served as president of A&F’s sister brand, Hollister, set out to overhaul the parent company in 2017, it was a tough job for her. As detailed in a 2022 Fortune feature, she abandoned her predecessors’ command-and-control method of running the company in favor of letting rank-and-file employees have more input. I raised the quality of clothing and, more importantly, decided to avoid chasing trends.
“‘Cool’ is a difficult word,” Horowitz told The New York Times. luck The Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. “This is not what we aspire to be. We aspire to be a long-term lifestyle brand
Anyone can wear it and enjoy it for many years.” (Her sentiments echo those of designer Ralph Lauren, who once said, “I don’t want to be too sexy.”)
Horowitz’s strategy worked. A&F’s sales nearly doubled to $2.6 billion between 2019 and 2024; Hollister, which had also struggled, also prospered. This year, combined sales of both brands will exceed $5 billion for the first time.
Maintaining this upward momentum is the big challenge facing Horowitz. One tactic I used was to look for new partnerships. This summer, Abercrombie Kids began selling its clothing in Macy’s department stores. Separately, the National football League has selected Abercrombie & Fitch as its first-ever apparel partner with the retailer carrying merchandise such as mesh T-shirts and half-zip fleeces for each of the NFL’s 32 leagues.
The upside of the NFL deal is exposure to millions of NFL fans, half of whom are women, Horowitz said. The CEO says this group wasn’t always well served by team merchandise that was often “pink and sparkly” — not the more sophisticated products you’d bet they’d want to wear on game day.
“The opportunity for us specifically is customer acquisition and brand awareness,” said Horowitz, a New York Giants fan. “Even though 50% of their fan base is female, they may not be recognized or celebrated as much as they could be, nor are they specifically catered to.
2025-10-15 19:38:00
