{"id":24535,"date":"2022-05-03T09:57:52","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T16:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/presskitchen.com\/?p=24535"},"modified":"2026-01-28T09:50:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T09:50:27","slug":"washington-square-films-director-alison-klayman-interview-on-abercrombie-fitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.techsystintel.com\/press_kitchen_dev\/washington-square-films-director-alison-klayman-interview-on-abercrombie-fitch\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Square Films Director Alison Klayman Dishes on Documentary ‘White Hot’, via Vox"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Abercrombie & Fitch told a generation who it was<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

The director of the new Netflix documentary says the clothes are only half the story.<\/p>\n

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For a long stretch there around the turn of the millennium, Abercrombie & Fitch wasn\u2019t just another mall brand, like American Eagle or the Gap. It was an aura, a lifestyle, a representation of everything that most of us were never going to be: sexy, thin, rich, carefree, and white. In some ways, it was the last gasp of mall monoculture, and it went out with a bang. For those of us who were just coming of age back then, the things we absorbed about our own inadequacies from Abercrombie\u2019s marketing, their controversial catalogs, and their intimidating stores have been hard to shake.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s what Alison Klayman set out to explore in\u00a0White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch. The documentary is less about a company than a culture \u2014 both the store\u2019s culture of exclusion and the broader sense that a brand could dictate what beauty looked like.<\/p>\n

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In some ways, things (including Abercrombie itself) have changed a lot since the aughts; in others, they haven\u2019t changed at all. But Klayman \u2014 whose previous films include deep-dive profiles of\u00a0Alanis Morissette,\u00a0Steve Bannon, and\u00a0Ai Weiwei\u00a0\u2014 found the brand to be a perfect encapsulation of those cultural shifts and, more importantly, what they mean. We talked about the film, the company, and what she thinks about corporate responsibility now. Our conversation has been edited for clarity.<\/p>\n

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I was born in 1983.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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I was born in \u201984.<\/p>\n

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So we\u2019re the same age. And I remember, very distinctly, going to the mall as a teen and being way too scared to go into Abercrombie.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t shop at Abercrombie. The mall near me was the King of Prussia Mall, and I think I once ventured in. My mom waited outside. I was kind of confused, which just shows how not cool and not the target customer I was. I think I went in to see if there was even a sale rack, and there wasn\u2019t. It was dark. There was loud music, and I left because I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t feel comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Abercrombie wasn\u2019t a big factor in the social scene of my school; I went to a small Jewish day school, and we all wore, like, baggy T-shirts and sweatpants, and went to thrift shops. That was just what was cool for us.<\/p>\n

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\"Abercrombie<\/picture><\/span><\/span>
A group of Abercrombie & Fitch models at the opening of the Fifth Avenue store in New York City in 2005.<\/figcaption>\u00a0David Pomponio\/FilmMagic for Paul Wilmot Communications<\/cite><\/span><\/figure>\n

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But all that said, I know exactly what Abercrombie & Fitch signified to me at the time. It loomed large in the culture. And I certainly got the message that it was what was cool. It was aspirational. I really relate to [blogger] Phil Yu\u2019s line in the film; he talks about getting the catalog and being like, \u201cIs this what college will be like for me?\u201d But I know that this isn\u2019t for me. The clothes don\u2019t fit me. The models don\u2019t look like me. I got that message very clearly.<\/p>\n

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In retrospect, that seems like a crazy way to market clothing! You always market based on aspiration, but to market clothing based on the idea that this is not for you seems counterproductive. Today\u2019s Abercrombie is all about inclusive sizing. So that seems like a real indicator of how our culture has shifted in a relatively short period of time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Yeah. We tried to convey at the end of the film, where we bring you up to today, that [the changes in marketing from then to today are] all just about selling you things. So maybe today\u2019s Abercrombie has just tapped into a different strategy that is now the prevailing strategy of good business in order to sell you a V-neck.<\/p>\n

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The appeal of doing Abercrombie & Fitch as a documentary was twofold. One, it really touched almost every single one of us in several consecutive microgenerations. It cuts to the core and is so personal \u2014 where you grew up, how much money your family had, or how you felt about your body or your social standing. All of that makes it, to me, an incredible topic.<\/p>\n

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