Julio Lima, owner of ad agency Say It Loud and photography studio and event space Orange Studio, has designed a poster that will hang soon in each of the six giant windows of his one-story orange building facing the busy Mills Ave.
The poster's background is a wrinkled t-shirt with the letters F U A F in bold.
This is Lima's response to what Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, said about the brand with regard to cool kids and not so cool kids.
Here's exactly what the CEO said in 2006 to Salon.com: “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”
On May 15, the CEO Jeffries released a response to the online uproar regarding his comments:
"While I believe this 7 year old, resurrected quote has been taken out of context, I sincerely regret that my choice of words was interpreted in a manner that has caused offense. A&F is an aspirational brand that, like most specialty apparel brands, targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers. However, we care about the broader communities in which we operate and are strongly committed to diversity and inclusion. We hire good people who share these values. We are completely opposed to any discrimination, bullying, derogatory characterizations or other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics."
