Abercrombie & Fitch History
Earlier company descriptions, brand line-ups, store counts and brand logos from the history of Abercrombie & Fitch Co., kept for historical reference.
The Brand Family, As the Company Described It
In an earlier company description, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. presented its brand family this way:
The iconic Abercrombie & Fitch brand was born in 1892 and aims to make every day feel as exceptional as the start of a long weekend. Around it sit four sister brands, each with its own stated brief: abercrombie kids sees the world through kids' eyes, where play is life; the Hollister brand believes in liberating the spirit of an endless summer inside everyone and making teens feel celebrated and comfortable in their own skin; Gilly Hicks offers active lifestyle products designed to create happiness through movement; and Social Tourist, the creative vision of Hollister and social media personalities Dixie and Charli D'Amelio, offers trend forward apparel for teens.
Stores and Web Sites of the Time
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. operates approximately 760 stores under these brands across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, as well as the e-commerce sites abercrombie.com, abercrombiekids.com, hollisterco.com, gillyhicks.com and socialtourist.com. The company was founded in 1892 and is headquartered in New Albany, Ohio. Those figures are the company's own from that period, kept as they were published; the current Abercrombie & Fitch company profile carries today's numbers for a shopper or researcher comparing this retailer with the other mall and specialty names in the A section of this directory.
An Earlier Company Summary
An older summary of the company, also kept for historical reference, described the business this way: through its subsidiaries the company operated as a specialty retailer of casual apparel for men, women, and children, offering knit and woven shirts, graphic t-shirts, fleece, jeans and woven pants, shorts, sweaters, and outerwear, as well as personal care products and accessories under the Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie, Hollister, and RUEHL brands, with Gilly Hicks branded stores selling bras, underwear, personal care products, sleepwear, and at-home products for women. As of February 2, 2008, it operated 1,035 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and also sold through web-based stores and a catalogue.
Reading This Record
For a shopper looking back at the brand family of those years, the practical reading is the brand split itself: the flagship name for the long-weekend feeling, Hollister for the teen endless-summer brief, abercrombie kids for children, Gilly Hicks for active lifestyle products, and Social Tourist for trend-led teen experimentation on and off social media. Prices, size ranges and availability of the time were listed on the brands' own sites and in store; this page records the company's structure and history rather than a live catalogue.
The five brand logos below show the family as it stood in that period: Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister Co, abercrombie, Gilly Hicks and Ruehl.
Photos
The logos of the Abercrombie & Fitch family of brands: the flagship label, Hollister Co, the abercrombie children's brand, Gilly Hicks and the Ruehl line.
