As counterintuitive as it might seem, being trendy can be a curse for a clothing brand. Abercrombie & Fitch for years was a trendy tastemaker that told customers what was cool, not the other way around, and it worked. Until it didn’t.
A decade ago, the “It” brand of the 2000s and early 2010s crashed. Customers were turned off by the highly sexualized marketing and leadership’s disdainful attitude toward shoppers it said weren’t cool enough for Abercrombie & Fitch’s clothes.
