Ask for It by Name!

Known today for selling upscale youth clothing (as well as for its catalog, which until recently was frequently denounced for its sexually suggestive photographs), Abercrombie & Fitch is actually one of the oldest retail chains in the US. Today’s A&F, however, is a far cry from your granddaddy’s favorite sporting goods store.

Abercrombie & Fitch was the creation of an odd, and ultimately unsustainable, partnership. David T. Abercrombie was, by the 1890s, a former miner, trapper and engineer who had established a small business in Manhattan manufacturing and selling camping, hunting and other outdoors equipment. Ezra Fitch was a successful lawyer and avid outdoor enthusiast, a passion that made him one of Abercrombie’s best customers. In 1900, after much cajoling, Fitch finally convinced Abercrombie to let him buy into the business, and in 1904 the name of the enterprise officially became Abercrombie & Fitch. By 1907, however, the honeymoon was definitely over, and irreconcilable differences over the future of the business led to the breakup of the partnership. Abercrombie resigned and went back to manufacturing camping equipment, but Fitch found new partners and A&F entered the period of its greatest success.

In 1917, Abercrombie & Fitch Co., which had been mailing out more than 50,000 catalogs per year, established a twelve-story sporting goods store in Manhattan, at that time the largest in the world. Abercrombie & Fitch sold equipment and clothing for every conceivable sport or outdoor pastime, from big game hunting (Teddy Roosevelt was a customer) to lawn tennis.

By the 1960s, however, many Americans were getting all the adventure they wanted from television, and Abercrombie & Fitch foundered, finally declaring bankruptcy in 1977. After an unsuccessful reopening, again as a sporting goods chain, under new ownership, Abercrombie & Fitch was bought in 1988 by The Limited, which revamped A&F’s image and inventory. Gone were the shotguns and fishing lures, replaced by trendy clothing and racy imagery.