Hunks needn’t follow: Abercrombie Loosens Its Hotties-most effective Hiring Practices

For years, working at Abercrombie & Fitch had one specifically stringent requirement: You needed to be absolutely scorching. these days, the youth-obsessed apparel retailer announced that this coverage is changing.

according to The Washington publish, Abercrombie will now not use the visible attraction of job candidates as a think about hiring.

Abercrombie has long had a reputation for objectifying both its employees and shoppers. Shirtless men were once stationed at store entrances, the retailer shunned promoting to “fat girls,” and at one time, its catalogs resembled porn (in a single difficulty, bare twentysomethings have been having team masturbation). The retailer’s new shift is less philosophical and extra strategic: The $four billion retailer has gotten pummeled in recent years through the new crop of fast retailers like H&M and Forever21. in step with a up to date Bloomberg industry article, store sales have decreased 5 of the past seven years.

within the spirit of de-sexualizing its model, the company is going to prevent calling their store pals “models” and as an alternative use the a long way extra euphemistic term “model representatives.” apparently, the sexually suggestive advert campaigns are going out the door too. The changes will raise over to Hollister, Abercombie’s other clothing brand.

As tThe Washington publish explains:

a part of the mounting public pushback in opposition to the brand needed to do with the corporate’s “seem to be policy,” a extremely specific set of pointers for employees that reportedly included ideas on the whole thing from hairstyles (“sunkissed/delicate highlighting” was once okay, however “chunks of contrasting colour” weren’t) to fingernails (polish needed to be pores and skin-toned and nails could not be longer than a quarter inch).

the company’s new costume code softens its means, with a broader requirement that staff simply be “neat, easy, natural and smartly-groomed.” There are nonetheless some no-nos, then again: unless they have an licensed accommodation, staff can not put on excessive jewellery or make-up, visible piercings instead of within the earlobes, massive tattoos or headwear.

This enlightenment come after years of mounting criticism about these practices—and no twist of fate, six months after Abercrombie’s eccentric CEO Mike Jeffries stepped down from that role.