The title of the Netflix original 'White Hot' perfectly encapsulates a brand whose entire MO was centred in discrimination. Their CEO Mike Jeffries made no secret of it either, "A lot of people don't belong in our clothes, and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely".
Airing on the 19th of April, the documentary directed by Alyson Klayman will follow the lifespan of the billion dollar company, when at its height, saw millions of teenagers flock to stores every weekend for a picture with topless doorman (weird) before being assaulted by their signature cologne inside, then spending their pocket money on a pair of moose-clad trackies, and ultimately tipping on to Starbucks for a coffee-less, sugary, vanilla ice frappé. Or something like that.
Interviews with ex-staff members highlight just how unethical the branding was, not to mention how unsustainable it would be to have a brand geared towards the "young, thin, and white". The Netflix trailer emphasises the very xenophobic, discriminatory management practices in place, whereby a woman's application was rejected because she was wearing a headscarf.
Mike Jeffries had a very specific and wrong idea of who was the "All-American" cool kid, and if you didn't quite tick all of his "White Hot" boxes, you were out or at the very least working at the back of the store folding clothes. The trailer shows someone who we assume to be a former employee explaining, "they were hiring and firing people based on their looks". The public outrage is burning in this 2 minute 8 second long trailer, so we can imagine the full thing is going to go into the biggest scandals the that the company faced over the years.
Coming to Netflix in just over 2 weeks on the 19th of April, 'White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch' is going to be top on our must-watch list. Who doesn't love to see the downfall of a villain?
