France Investigates Abercrombie’s Sexy Salesmen
You shouldn't have to be good looking to sell clothes, says France's official human rights organization, which is investigating clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch.
You shouldn’t have to be good looking to sell clothes, says France’s official human rights organization, which is investigating clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch.
The clothing company has been sued in the United States not just for promoting attractive employees, but a racist notion of good looks that tends to favor white people.
France is an odd nemesis for Abercrombie. For one thing, according to the company’s website, there is only one store in the entire country. It happens to be in the middle of the high-fashion mecca of the Champs Elysees, where absurd beauty standards are something of a cultural industry, if not a national export.
In its defense, the retailer admits it employs shirtless young men to stand in front of its stores and entice customers, but it says these people are models. The Defenseur des Droits believes the discrimination goes beyond storefront eye candy, which, according to the organization’s chief, Dominique Baudis, would be OK: “Though physical appearance may legitimately be a key and determining professional factor for models, that’s not so for sales staff.”
Of course France has to draw the line at modeling. Can you imagine literal fashion police descending on Paris to investigate the wastrel models flaunting Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent? We’re no fans of Abercrombie’s Aryan beauty normalizing, but this feels a bit like investigating McDonald’s for using trans fats in the global capital of buttered food.
— Posted by Peter Z. Scheer
Your support is crucial...As we navigate an uncertain 2025, with a new administration questioning press freedoms, the risks are clear: our ability to report freely is under threat.
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to dig deeper, delivering fearless investigative reporting and analysis that exposes the reality beneath the headlines — without compromise.
Now is the time to take action. Stand with our courageous journalists. Donate today to protect a free press, uphold democracy and uncover the stories that need to be told.
Government officials suspect another whistle-blower is leaking documents from the National Security Agency to The Intercept; the left's concern with ideology over beauty may be destroying art; meanwhile, Toledo, Ohio's water contamination may finally change Republicans' attitudes toward the environment. These discoveries and more after the jump.
An older Dustin Hoffman interview making the rounds online shows the actor tearing up over his regret at not having known more "interesting women" because they did not "fulfill, physically, the demands that we're brought up to think [they] have to have in order for us to ask them out."
Research over the years has shown that attractive people tend to reap economic rewards, from higher salaries and more promotions to lower interest rates on mortgages. (more)
We need to remember that beauty and race are both social constructions—concepts societies create that may not actually exist in nature. As a result, beauty and race are associated with and impacted by class, immigration, gender, sexuality and marketing.Are mixed race faces considered the most beautiful?
Dr. Seuss has some new competition. Dr. Michael Salzhauer is a Florida plastic surgeon who has swapped his scalpel for a typewriter. His debut work, "My Beautiful Mommy," attempts to educate the children of plastic surgery patients about tummy tucks, breast enhancements and nose jobs.
This week, our collection of Truthdig-flavored videos includes Jon Stewart grilling John Ashcroft on torture; an unbelievable before-and-after as a billboard model is transformed; and a satirical campaign ad so preposterous that the GOP won't even run it.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.