Abercrombie Invasion Inverted: NYC

Having written about the Abercrombie & Fitch store opening soon in Singapore and their less than blameless record as a corporate citizen, this blog will now offer some more humorous, gentle subversion. The outstanding comedy group Improv Everywhere staged a performance inside an A&F store in New York in 2007. Unsurprisingly, management took a rather dim view of Improv's antics. Every major Abercrombie location has a shirtless male "store model" at the front door, and this does not beget a corporate sense of humor?

For more great stunts visit the Improv Everywhere YouTube channel.

USA Soccer: Getting Better

This blog has written previously about soccer/football/sepak bola (that last one in Malay) in the United States. The country's occasionally maligned MLS enjoyed a record 2011. The league continues to improve its stadia, and it found a receptive audience in the Pacific Northwest for new teams in Portland and Vancouver. The league is now third in the USA based on average attendance per game. They pipped the NBA and NHL with a mean 17,180 fans visiting each match. This is good news for development of the game in the USA and also an excuse for some quality highlights.

In other news the well paid LA Galaxy defeated Houston Dynamo for their third MLS cup on Sunday, and a few folks in the UK bothered to watch. Also Kasey Keller at 41 should still be sending his CV to European clubs.

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.

The corner location of Abercrombie's Singapore flagship store, soon to be plastered with young, (only?) white flesh. Image site.

Lion Air in the News

"We make people fly," and Lion Air flies the Boeing 747 between Jakarta and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

More than six months ago this blog had a post about the Indonesian airline Lion Air. The company is now a little bit better known in the United States this week after putting in a massive order for 230 Boeing aircraft. The airline was started in 1999 by travel agent Rusdi Kirana and his brother. They are planning to expand their route map all over Southeast and East Asia:

The once little-known Indonesian airline says it is planning to buy 230 planes from Boeing Co. The bill — with a list price of $21.7 billion — is to be paid over 12 years though bank financing.
Dozens of airlines have emerged in Indonesia since it deregulated its aviation industry in the 1990s, making air travel affordable for the first time for many across the sprawling island nation of 240 million, and luring passengers away from ferries and trains.

NY Times edits Singapore

Marina Bay Sands "Integrated Resort" under construction in July 2010.

The New York Times gave Singapore the 36-hours treatment last week. The popular Travel-section feature summarizes tourism opportunities in locations near and far. I have especially liked the paper's write-ups of St Louis, Hong Kong, and Cork. I concur with the choices of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, the Wild Rocket/Wild Oats restaurant and bar atop Mt Emily, and the shopping experience along Haji Lane. Of course, any travel guide would be remiss not to mention the newly opened "integrated resort" (read: casino) Marina Bay Sands overlooking the Central Business District.

However, many of the other choices in the article seem poorly advised. High tea at the Raffles Hotel is an overpriced endeavor, and walking along Robertson Quay on a Sunday morning followed by a cycle tour sounds like a recipe for heat stroke. Also the Maxwell Road Food Centre has little to recommend it over other hawker centers besides it's proximity to Chinatown. Similarly the Ritz-Carlton Millenia doesn't seem like a terribly interesting hotel choice. Also "Orchard Street" needs to be corrected to read "Orchard Road."

The Big Day in the UK

We can only hope the event will be this festive.

There's a wedding happening today at Westminster Abbey. The Passengers will watch a bit of the ceremony from Changi Airport because we are flying to Thailand for a long weekend. Here in Singapore the royal occasion will be less of a morning event and more of a prime-time affair. The service starts at 6pm for us. Rest assured, Channel 5 will start coverage three hours early.

The video above is sponsored by T-Mobile. I was amused. Then, I had to confirm to myself that the setting was St Bartholomew's in Smithfield, a Romanesque Augustinian Abbey.

Of Men and Muppets

The new production of "Upstairs Downstairs" has arrived in the USA. Americans watched the previous version on PBS's "Masterpiece Theater," and it reminds me of a great cross-cultural moment shared in 2004 after Alistair Cooke passed away. Each of us tried to explain to the other what made him an endearing public figure.

Passenger H: Have you heard of him? Alistair Cooke used to always read the "Letter from America" on the BBC.
Passenger J: Alistair Cooke? You mean the "Masterpiece Theater" host?
H: Masterpiece wha--?
J: (in Cookie Monster voice) "Hello and welcome to 'Monsterpiece Theater.' I'm Alistair Cookie."
H: Is THAT why they called him Alistair Cookie?

I was reminded of the "Sesame Street" parody above by this week's New Yorker podcast.