Abercrombie & Filth: Inside a predator’s playground

Some predators hide in plain sight, shocking those around them when their crimes are finally revealed. Others give off subtle — and not-so-subtle — clues that something is deeply amiss.

Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries, arrested on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges last week, falls squarely in the latter category.

Victims were reportedly subjected to horrific experiences, including being injected with liquid Viagra by men dressed in Abercrombie uniforms.

During his time at the helm of the iconic American brand, Jeffries pursued a relentlessly hyper-sexualized marketing strategy built around homoerotic imagery and a cult-like worship of half-naked teens.

As this fetishization of youthful innocence intensified, Jeffries' face — like a reversal of Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" — seemed to bear witness to his depravity. A nightmarish regimen of fillers and plastic surgery turned the blandly handsome executive into a grotesque parody of the ideal Abercrombie customer.

As one Reddit wag put it, "He looks like he was bobbing for apples in a bucket of bees."

Epstein redux

The revelations surrounding Jeffries mirror the monstrous abuses of Jeffrey Epstein, with the former CEO reportedly using his power to orchestrate a calculated pattern of sexual exploitation. Like Epstein, Jeffries also had a private jet.

The indictment paints a grim picture. Specifically, an international sex trafficking ring as part of which Abercrombie’s brand was weaponized to lure and trap vulnerable young men, exploiting their ambitions with false promises of professional opportunities.

From 2008 to 2015, Jeffries, along with his partner Matthew Smith and employee James Jacobson, allegedly ran this operation with impunity all while exerting tight control over the company.

This was both a full-time operation and a depraved hobby.

Final sale

Witness accounts and legal filings describe a sordid quest for sexual gratification, with Jeffries and Smith luring young men with lavish trips to luxurious destinations in Europe, the Hamptons, and Morocco.

Once there, theses victims were reportedly subjected to horrific experiences, including being injected with liquid Viagra by men dressed in Abercrombie uniforms — agents of Jeffries who served more as enforcers than employees.

One Los Angeles man recounted being coerced into Jeffries’ hotel suite and enduring unwanted sexual advances that escalated to forced acts despite his repeated attempts to say no.

Jeffries headed Abercrombie from 1992 until 2014, turning it into one of the most successful clothing brands of the new millennium and generating massive profits for the company. Given the brazenness of Jeffries alleged behavior, the frantic efforts of current Abercrombie leadership to distance themselves from the scandal ring hollow.

It’s delusional to think Jeffries and his accomplices acted completely under the radar. His predatory actions were fueled by a culture of silence, sustained by a network of enablers who willfully ignored the abuse. As in Epstein's case, powerful people could have intervened and stopped the abuse. They simply chose not to.

J Cruel

Jeffries’ control of Abercrombie extended far beyond the brand’s image. That he even dictated the attire and behavior of his private jet staff reveals a tyrant detached from reality, consumed by his own twisted desires.

Jeffries' dictatorial rule went unchallenged for years — and no doubt would've continued had he continued to deliver. His downfall was not the result of a reckoning for his crimes but a response to declining sales and changing cultural attitudes that made his vision unsustainable.

But the issue, I suggest, goes far beyond Jeffries himself. This is a story of a brand culture that fostered tyranny and silenced dissent, one that thrived on reducing people to their body fat percentages.

Abercrombie’s entire aesthetic — a fixation on youth, beauty, and chiseled abs — was built on a foundation of control and exploitation. The implications of this culture are not isolated to one corrupt CEO but extend to an entire industry, where the commodification of innocence creates an environment ripe for abuse.

More precisely, the abuse of children.

Bait and Fitch

A recent Stop The Traffik report highlights the broader reality of the modeling industry, where hopes and dreams are weaponized by traffickers and predators.

In countries like Colombia, Ethiopia, and Russia, assurances of a glamorous lifestyle are used to bait young, impoverished individuals into exploitative situations. Promises of modeling careers quickly become coercive, trapping victims in cycles of manipulation and sexual exploitation.

The entire industry is run by multi-millionaires and billionaires, people with their own private security and private islands. People who, on the whole, play by a very different set of rules. Or no rules at all.

Dirty laundry

As we reflect on Abercrombie & Fitch’s dark legacy of sexualizing teens, it’s vital to remember that this culture was crafted by an immoral predator. Naturally, the company hopes you’ll forget. In fact, it’s banking on it.

Rather incredibly, retail analysts suggest the brand's campaign to memory hole its sleazy past is working. Newer customers are too young to remember while older ones seem to have accepted Abercrombie's reinvention into something more muted and mature.

But no amount of rebranding can erase the reality that Abercrombie didn’t just enable Mike Jeffries — it rewarded him handsomely. It wasn’t merely a matter of giving a platform to a possible psychopath (and I don’t use that term lightly); Abercrombie empowered and enriched him while turning a blind eye to his behavior.

For all its attempts to exorcise the memory of Jeffries, the company will forever be tied to a man whose degeneracy nearly destroyed it. The exploitation of kids wasn’t an accident — it was the business model. Jeffries was the architect, and Abercrombie was his enabler.

And that’s a legacy you can’t wash away.