Obscenity Charges Against Abercrombie & Fitch

The other night while doing a little Mission Viejo Mall walking with my wife we passed the Abercrombie & Fitch store, with its pounding music and questionable advertising photography. I'm not really sure who they're marketing to with a photo of some guy with his rear end hanging out of his jeans. That doesn't make me want to buy their jeans because apparently they don't fit well.

In Virginia Beach the same marketing photos have gotten an A&F store manager charged with obscenity:

Police, saying they were responding to citizen complaints, carted away two large promotional photographs from the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Lynnhaven Mall on Saturday and cited the manager on obscenity charges.

Adam Bernstein, a police spokesman, said the seizure and the issuance of the summons came only after store management had not heeded warnings to remove the images.

The citation was issued under City Code Section 22.31, Bernstein said, which makes it a crime to display "obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles." He did not say what was being done with the pictures and when the manager, whose name was not released, is scheduled to appear in court.

The manager, reached by telephone, declined to comment on the incident Saturday, saying that he was conferring with and waiting for guidance from Abercrombie corporate officials.

The mural-like black-and-white photographs were taken from the store at midafternoon.

Retailers, especially those trying to appeal to the young "hip" set, feel they need to scream above the surrounding clutter by using such graphics and photos. Have you ever seen a French Connection United Kingdom store? Their graphics usually consist of the first letter of each word in their name displayed in 3-foot tall print. When spotted out of the corner of your eye, or even when looking directly, it looks like the store is shouting an obscenity at you.

Some call it clever marketing. I call it a lack of imagination.