A&F Hong Kong retailer opening, 2012. 製作, CC BY-SA 3.0, by way of Wikimedia Commons.
In Could of 2005, discontent with my job as a photograph editor at a ladies’s journal, I accepted a suggestion from a buddy who did Bruce Weber’s casting to interview for a photograph assistant place with him. On the time, Weber was doing the pictures for Abercrombie & Fitch, working in tandem with the CEO, Mike Jeffries, to resurrect the model. The images, in tonally wealthy black-and-white or vivid shade, confirmed cheerful, cartoonishly chiseled, (principally) white individuals frolicking, washing canines, and customarily enjoying grab-ass. They hearkened again to the scrubbed cleanliness of the fifties (with a sprinkle of Leni Riefenstahl); everyone regarded like that they had gotten a haircut the morning of the shoot. My buddy described the photograph assistants as a bunch of younger males who traveled the world with Weber, making large cash. On breaks, they’d showcase for the fashions by enjoying shirtless soccer on the seaside or leaping off cliffs into slender swimming pools of water. This appeared higher than sitting at my desk arranging catering or reassuring Missy Elliott’s group that the mansion the place we had been going to {photograph} her did in truth have air-conditioning.
The day of my interview, I placed on a grey sweater, a striped oxford, and A.P.C. New Requirements. I wished to look tidy, however not too uptight. As requested by the primary assistant, I introduced a CD of my photos to exhibit my pictures expertise. The workplace was open plan, with a big spherical desk within the center and twenty or so individuals milling about. Weber, a bandanna-ed Santa Claus kind, shuffled round chatting along with his workers, trailed by a pack of an identical golden retrievers. I sat down with Weber’s first assistant, whom I’ll name Sean. Sean instructed me he had been photographed by Bruce (we saved speaking about “Bruce” as if he had been imaginary, despite the fact that he was standing just a few ft away) when he was a NCAA wrestler. He had close-cropped blond hair, and the lingering musculature of a former athlete (I later got here throughout Weber’s photos of him and his teammates within the locker room, showering cheerfully). The job, as Sean described it, was at hand Weber an unceasing move of Pentax 6×7 medium-format cameras that had been preloaded with movie, targeted and set to the correct publicity so he might {photograph} repeatedly with out technical fuss.
We clicked by way of the CD of my pictures and he complimented my use of shade. Whereas we talked, I regarded across the workplace on the different assistants, a spread pack of hunks. Amongst them had been an Ashton Kutcher kind, a Patrick Bateman kind, and the all-American boy interviewing me. Wrapping up the interview, he instructed me that they wanted to take a Polaroid as a result of Bruce “wanted to have the ability to put a face to the identify.” I stood up and posed for the Polaroid, made with a classic land digicam. I knew this second was to be my undoing. I’m beneath six ft and, in keeping with my sister’s 23andMe, our household is 99.3 % Ashkenazi Jew. This kind appeared absent from the roster. I suspected I used to be not there to fill that void. We shook palms, and I acquired within the elevator and left. After just a few calls over the following few weeks, issues tapered off and I by no means heard from them once more. Generally I’m wondering in the event that they saved these Polaroids, and if it could be potential for me to get mine again.
Shortly after my interview, an Abercrombie flagship retailer opened on Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Sixth Road. Except for the overwhelming stench of their cologne Fierce (an “irresistible mix of marine breeze, sandalwood, musk and wooden notes”) and the moody lighting, each A&F retail signatures, the Fifth Avenue retailer was notable for its centerpiece, a mural referred to as The Locker Room. This was painted by the artist Mark Beard, beneath one in every of his many aliases, Bruce Sargeant. (The identify Bruce is inexplicably traditionally related to being homosexual; for instance, when the Unimaginable Hulk comics had been tailored for tv, Bruce Banner’s identify was thought-about too fey, and altered to David.) The mural depicts an early-twentieth-century fitness center class in a mode that evokes Thomas Eakins: younger males in saggy loincloths or singlets, doing calisthenics and climbing ropes. Like Weber’s flawless crew of assistants, the romantically rendered athletes had been good manifestations of the hairless-and-wholesome masculinity outlined by his work for A&F. Homoerotic, suggestive, however by no means specific. You possibly can be recognizing your pal as he climbed a rope or playfully pulling your buddy’s underwear down all in good enjoyable! The photographs from the shop’s opening present the reside model: teams of unnamed shirtless guys carrying across the (blond, rosy-cheeked) mannequin Heather Lang, chastely kissing her on the cheek.
These festive days at the moment are over. In July of 2023, Abercrombie closed its Fifth Avenue flagship and transformed the Hollister (a sister model) down the block to interchange it. The CEO, Fran Horowitz, mentioned of the consolidation: “It’s 180 levels from the cavernous, darkish membership feeling of the previous … That is the antithesis of that.” Within the many years between my ill-fated interview and the shop’s closing, Abercrombie noticed a slew of sexual abuse scandals involving Weber and Jeffries. Weber was accused of molesting male fashions whereas photographing them (sticking his fingers of their mouths, et cetera) and settled their lawsuits for a undisclosed quantities. The allegations in opposition to Jeffries (and his romantic associate) contain a intermediary named James Jacobson, recognizable by the snakeskin patch he wears over his nostril, presumably resulting from a botched cosmetic surgery. Jacobson was mentioned to have recruited a whole bunch of younger males for Jeffries and coerced them into sexual favors by tantalizing them with the potential for modeling careers. Very Epstein-like certainly, and coincidentally (or not?) Epstein was the cash supervisor for Les Wexner, the person who not solely introduced Jeffries on to A&F however as soon as owned Victoria’s Secret as properly. Wexner (together with Dov Charney) was the architect of the New American Horniness that sprung up within the aughts and supposedly died with #MeToo, Hikikomori Zoomers, and the pandemic.
On a latest journey to Midtown with a while to kill, I discovered myself in search of the A&F retailer to revisit Sargeant’s mural. This was once I realized the shop had moved, and that the mural had been uninstalled in 2018. (It was reconstructed in Beard’s studio, earlier than being lower up into smaller work and proven on the Carrie Haddad Gallery.) The brand new A&F retailer has an open plan, ficuses, and vivid overhead lights. The one artwork is bland journey pictures. I wandered round, taking stock of a tepid mixture of preppy fundamentals, Nirvana youngsters’ T-shirts for the kids of Gen Xers, and a conspicuous lack of A&F logos. The technique is working: the corporate’s inventory went up 300 % in 2023, their scandalous previous is lengthy gone. And Bruce? He appears to be doing superb. In a latest Instagram put up, he shared {a photograph} of seven golden retrievers, together with a brand new pet, who, after a lot debate, was christened Spirit Bear.
A&F Hong Kong retailer opening, 2012. 製作, CC BY-SA 3.0, by way of Wikimedia Commons.
Asha Schechter is an artist and author residing in New York Metropolis.
