Abercrombie Is Banning Abs From Its Advertising

Objectify men no longer! The chiseled bodies of its male models and their washboard abs will be banned from Abercrombie advertisements, with the exception of the labels of its signature cologne Fierce. Bloomberg reports that the brand “began a great purge” as early as last year, hoping that toning down its in-your-face hyper-sexualization of its models would win back teens -- the bread and butter of its consumer base -- after seeing a 77 percent decrease in profit.The brand is currently embroiled in a Supreme Court case regarding its hiring policies after refusing to hire a Muslim woman who wore a headscarf to her interview, a decision the Atlantic called “a concrete example of how standards of ‘attractiveness’ and ‘cool’ can be built on inadvertent discrimination.” This follows the resignation of Abercrombie’s CEO Mike Jeffries, who was unanimously castigated for stating he only wanted “cool” and thin people wearing his brand, thereby ostracizing a plus size demographic it later sought to market to.

Since last year, the brand began clothing its all of models in actual shirts and buttoned pants. One can only imagine that its banishment of toned male bodies is punishment for public outcry regarding its elitist hiring and sizing policies. Touché, Abercrombie.