English As a Second Nation: Queuing Up Trouble: Abercrombie & Fitch in Singapore

Abercrombie & Fitch chose a site close to a mosque for its Singapore store, but in the United States the company has faced allegations that it is hostile to observant Muslims.

American retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is about to open its first store in Singapore in the shopping complex Knightsbridge on Orchard Road. Southeast Asians will soon be able to buy classy clothes from a store that has sold thongs and padded bikini tops to eight-year-olds. As an American, I have a longer acquaintance with the company, and I am not looking forward to having A&F return to my neighborhood. Singaporeans without such a history undoubtedly will queue up to breathe in Abercrombie's fiercely scented air, just as they did for H&M's opening in September just across the street (and continue to do shamelessly).

The store was announced in March, expanding A&F's Asian footprint after opening an outlet in Japan in 2009. From a webpage that pretty much reads like a reprint of Abercrombie's press release:

Abercrombie & Fitch, an Ohio-based Casual Luxury themed brand, promises to deliver the same ‘all-American’ experience – including the young, fun and good-looking ‘store models’ and the same merchandise that is found at its any other flagship stores around the world, reflecting their brand’s heritage, youth and sex appeal with a unique emphasis on quality and store experience.

“We think that South East Asia represents a great opportunity for the brand and Singapore makes a great fit,” said an A&F spokesperson. “Our launch in Singapore is answering an established enthusiasm for A&F, and giving our fan-base a place to go and live the brand.”

The "Casual Luxury" (read: overpriced) brand zealously guards and controls its image and store experience, starting with its opaque shop fronts that eschew the usual large window displays of available merchandise. The Knightsbridge outlet is no exception, placing oversized dark-wooden washboard shutters behind its windows. No doubt they will soon erect billboards overhead emblazoned with oversized black-and-white images of washboard abs. Full marks to Abercrombie for selling so much apparel without actually displaying any clothes. However, the "store models" and employees inside rarely match the dark panelling in the windows. Abercrombie unabashedly peddles a pernicious, privileged white-bread version of what they believe is "all-American," and it has repeatedly and unrepentantly given little consideration to any other members of a very diverse world, and they are now exporting that rigorously enforced look.

Where to start? How about the minimum $40 million settlement the company agreed to pay in 2004 for denying jobs and promotions to blacks, Asians, and Latinos? In 2009 a UK employment tribunal ruled the company had unlawfully harassed a disabled law student born without her left arm and working in the flagship London store. Singaporean Muslims might want to know about the pending lawsuit of a twenty-year-old Muslim woman who allegedly lost her job at Hollister, a beach-themed Abercrombie spin-off, for wearing a hijab headscarf of the style seen throughout Southeast Asia. The suit was filed this year and adds to cases of the same kind already pending. Chinese Singaporeans will surely want to hear about T-shirts sensitively trading in racial stereotypes in 2002 ("Wong Brothers Laundry Service: Two Wongs Can Make it White"). I want to know if the flagship shop will try to force low-wage shop workers in Singapore to buy and wear very expensive Abercrombie gear. In the US they had to settle yet another lawsuit alleging such practice. Good luck finding out the answers to these questions since in 2010 Abercrombie and Fitch provided "virtually zero" data on its behavior regarding "environment, climate change, human rights, employee relations, finance, governance, and philanthropy."

Some people in Singapore's diverse racial and religious mix end up will want "to go and live the brand," even if the company fails to offer dignified employment here. I am sure that the "brand’s heritage, youth and sex appeal" will attract plenty of business. But I want Singaporeans to know a little bit more about what that heritage is.