Abercrombie is Falling Down

Former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch Mike Jeffries and his partner, Matthew Smith were arrested yesterday for allegedly operating an international sex trafficking ring during the brand's heyday

I pulled the jeans out of the back of my closet. They don’t fit like they did the day I lost my virginity.

Abercrombie & Fitch stone wash denim with perfect tears and white paint splatter, I can’t believe my lungs survived that store.

This is the one piece of clothing I’ll never get rid of.

When news broke yesterday morning that former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch was arrested for sex trafficking, it shattered memories I had of a brand that shaped my early days of womanhood. During high school, my identity was influenced by whatever store was most popular at the local mall. For me, that was Abercrombie. I desired to be as effortlessly beautiful and carefree as the ashy blonde women in the catalogues. Even though none of my classmates resembled the chiseled rugby players on the shopping bags, I clung to the fantasy the company sold: beauty, popularity and rebellious young love.

My braces were off and my hormones were rampant. I set out on a journey to find myself, which was hard to do at an all-white school in Attica, NY- a prison town that housed more cows than people. After school, I would walk to the tanning salon and choose the Playboy bunny sticker to put above my hip bone. I’d pull my A&F low rise jeans down low so the bunny ears would pop through on my walk home, hoping that one of my classmates would notice and honk from their pickup truck.

My mother always warned me to never mess with the natural mousey brown hair God gave me, but I never listened. I’d head to my neighbor’s basement with thirty dollars and a photo of Mary Kate and Ashley. “I want to look blonde like them.” And every time, I’d leave with chunky Kelly Clarkson streaks, just “like them.” Between the cap foiled highlights, a shimmery tan and ninety dollar ripped jeans with paint splatters on the bottom, I became my idea of the Abercrombie girl. 

When I was a freshman I dated Ethan. He was a senior and his dad nicknamed me “jail bait” because of our three year age gap. Ethan had frosted tips, a tongue ring, a tribal tattoo, and drove the loudest truck in town. Every Friday night he’d pick me up and take me to a bonfire somewhere in the middle of the woods, filled with upperclassmen chewing tobacco and spitting it back out, blasting Rascal Flatts and kicking beer cans around. His best friend, a farmer named Wolcott initiated me into the country party scene by picking me up and flipping me upside down for a “proper keg stand.” My parents always knew when I broke curfew because the smell of his Fierce cologne was harder to hide than Busch Light and ashes. 

That spring, I saved up for Abercrombie’s signature mini denim skirt, the one all the hottest girls were wearing at the time- the distressed one with the frayed edges that screamed “dress code violation.” But it wasn’t until I showed up to homeroom wearing a graphic tee that read: “Must be 21 or Older to Enjoy This Ride,” that my choice of clothing got me in trouble. My Spanish teacher took one look at the provocative statement displayed across my chest and sent me straight to the principal’s office. For the rest of the day, I had to wear the musty gym clothes that were stuffed in my locker to cover a slogan I didn’t even truly understand.

I called my Mom today and asked her why she let me buy that shirt.

“I was terrified of going in that store,” she said, not really recalling this particular shopping trip. “The employees always made me feel so frumpy and awful,” she said, expressing a similar sentiment to those interviewed in the 2022 documentary, ‘White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch.’

Learning the brand who played such a detrimental role in my teenage identity was hosting demonic, sexual abuse role play events was not the October surprise I was expecting. 

But how were we really supposed to know what was going on behind the wooden doors? In the early 2000s, nobody casually discussed sex trafficking rings. It wasn’t even a thought. Even if we wanted to, our Motorola flip phones wouldn’t allow enough EMS to unpack the theories worth exploring. Today is different. If someone saw shirtless 15-year-old boys wearing moose pajamas outside a storefront today, it would have a million views on TikTok exposing the corruption.

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2022 Abercrombie Documentary

The Netflix documentary ‘White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch’ dropped in 2022 and although it was the first major piece of media to expose the late millennium brand, the documentary itself fell flat with most film critics who deemed it as “superficial.” The plot centered around the company’s exclusion policies for a wide scale of people of color and exposed insight on problematic hiring practices most of us already knew. For years, the openly audacious CEO of Abercrombie, Mike Jeffries spoke candidly about his shallow expectations of onboarding retail employees. 

“A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes],” Jeffries told a reporter in 2006. 

“That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.” 

“Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. I don’t want our core customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing our clothing,” Jeffries admitted. 

Jeffries was the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch from 1992 to 2014. For two decades, he trained store managers to hide minorities and “ugly ducklings” in the back room to fold inventory and prop up beautiful white men and women to be seen on the floor. 

If you were cute, white and rude, you were likely cast to be an Abercrombie “model,” making $5.15/hour to fold shirts and ignore everyone who walked in the door. Snobbery was the brand’s calling card. But did we really need a documentary to tell us that? Most of us already lived it.

Following the announcement of the arrest of former CEO Mike Jeffries, his partner Matthew Smith, and their alleged middleman recruiter Jake “Mrs. Cook” Jacobson, the true darkness of Abercrombie & Fitch is finally coming to light. I guess by now, in October 2024, we should be used to finding out the entire foundation of our youth was orchestrated by an evil cabal. 

At a store where employees and customers endured discrimination, creepy managers, and body shame, we’re now discovering that the models we once idolized were also suffering in silence. Being booked as Abercromie talent meant being groomed, drugged, and abused by the powerful men who controlled this image of casual luxury for two decades.

Abercrombie wasn’t just a store; it was a stage where everyone played their part in a carefully curated performance. And now as the indictment is unsealed, we’re discovering just how dark the script has always been. 

In the end, everyone was a victim of Abercrombie.

"Despite the alleged efforts of Jeffrey, Smith and Jacobson to conceal their crimes, efforts that included threatening victims and requiring them to sign nondisclosure agreements, among other things, their plan failed. This case is yet another example of individuals using their wealth, power, or reputation to manipulate and control others for their own personal interests.”

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A&F Photographer Bruce Weber Accused of Sexual Harassment

As you revisit the campaign images A&F’s photographer Bruce Weber shot over the years, the racy hyper sexualized photographs the brand was known for, you’ll notice an obvious pattern. The majority of the photographs feature naked men on men with some implication of nudity or homosexuality. Given that CEO Mike Jeffries and his partner Matthew Smith were lovers who would allegedly take advantage of male models together, it makes sense that most campaigns featured more undressed men than women. 

An Abercromie model accused Bruce Weber of allegedly being into young men himself, just like his bosses. 

“It was very well known with Bruce that he liked young men,” former A&F model Ryan Daharsh said in a documentary. 

In the boxers ad below, fully clothed women are seen chasing around naked men. 

In 2017, male model Jason Boyce sued Weber for inappropriate behavior including unwanted touching and kissing. A few days later a second model came forward and said he was also a victim of Weber, alleging that Weber preyed on him during a 2005 photoshoot. One month later, 15 additional male models accused the photographer of sexual harassment. The report notes that there was a “remarkable consistency” throughout all fifteen claims. 

In 2018, five more models filed a lawsuit against Weber, alleging that he had exploited or sexually assaulted them. The legal complaint calls Weber a “serial sexual predator” and the lawyers representing the case described the photographer’s actions as sex trafficking. 

Even though Weber denied all allegations, Abercrombie & Fitch dropped him as a photographer once the allegations became public in 2018. Now six years later, the CEO who dropped Weber to save his own face, is facing similar charges. 

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Jeffries Arrested for International Sex Trafficking Operation

Mike Jeffries, 80 and his partner Matthew Smith 61, were arrested in Palm Beach Tuesday October 22, along with an alleged middleman from their operation named James “Mrs. Cook” Jacobson. The three men are being charged with a single count of sex trafficking and engaging in interstate prostitution tied to those 15 alleged victims, although prosecutors are claiming there are dozens of other victims.

According to new reports, the three men held numerous “sex events” in England, France, Italy, Morocco, St. Barts, New York City and the Hamptons between December 2008 and March 2015. Prosecutors reported that the men would coerce and pay young men to attend these “sex events” by promising them modeling opportunities, all while using force, fraud and coercion to engage in "violent and exploitive" sexual acts.  According to prosecutors, they “employed coercive, fraudulent and deceptive tactics in connection with the recruitment, hiring, transportation, obtaining, maintaining, solicitation and payment of the men to engage in commercial sex.” 

The lawsuit alleges that prospective models would interview with Abercrombie and Fitch, sign an NDA and then be taken to a room where they were forced to take drugs and have sex with Jeffries, his partner Smith and others.

Jeffries and Smith allegedly spent millions of dollars to support this operation and “maintain its secrecy” for years.

The FBI began investigating Jeffries after the BBC launched an investigation that revealed that Mike Jeffries and his partner Smith “sexually exploited and abused men” at events they hosted in hotels around the world and at their own residences in New York. The BBC investigation discovered a “sophisticated operation” involving a middleman and a network of recruiters who were assigned roles to find men for “sex events.”

US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Breon Peace, alleged that “Mr Jeffries used his wealth, power and status as CEO of A&F to traffic men for his own sexual pleasure and for the pleasure of his partner, Mr Smith.”

Peace alleged Jeffries and Smith hired James Jacobson to be their recruiter , having him conduct “tryouts” with young men from all over the world, engaging them in sex acts in exchange for money. Jacobson was allegedly traveling across the United States recruiting and interviewing men to attend these events. Eight men who allegedly attended the events said they were recruited by a middleman. The BBC identified this middle man as James Jacobson.

The youngest victim reported is 19. But according to the lawsuit, more than 100 victims will be seeking class-action suits against Jeffries and the company.

Allegation in the Hamptons: Oral Sex Required

David Bradberry was a 23-year old aspiring model at the time when it was made clear to him that the only way he would be able to meet with the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, Mike Jeffries, was by giving the alleged middleman, Jacobson oral sex. If he didn’t perform oral sex on Jacobson, he would be denied a meeting to move forward with the career opportunity. 

Bradberry told the BBC, "It was like he was selling fame. And the price was compliance.” 

Bradberry said he went to a party at Jeffries’ mansion in the Hamptons in Long Island where he met Jeffries and had sex with him. According to Bradberry, his personal staff was all dressed in Abercrombie uniforms and the location was quite isolated. 

“Many of the victims, at least one of whom was as young as 19 years old, were financially vulnerable and aspired to become models in the fashion industry, a notoriously cutthroat world,” the memo says. 

“Indeed, some of the men they recruited had previously worked at Abercrombie stores or modeled for Abercrombie.” 

Allegation in Spain: A&F Store Roleplay

A male victim, “Luke” came forward and told investigators he was taken into Jeffries’ presidential suite in a hotel in Spain in 2011 expecting that he was going to do a photoshoot. 

"It was like a movie set of an Abercrombie store," he said. 

He described the room being similar to the Abercrombie retail design: dimly lit with erotic photos of men’s abs on the dark walls. He said in the middle there was a group of assistants dressed in Abercrombie uniforms- a polo shirt, blue jeans and flip-flops, casually folding clothes pretending to be real employees. 

Luke says he was offered the chance to model in an Abercrombie & Fitch ad campaign. All he had to do was fly from his home in Los Angeles to Madrid to meet Jeffries, a proposal he claims came from a modeling website with a man claiming to be a talent scout and executive assistant for Jeffries. 

Luke said he was paid $3,500 in cash the night before the event, which he assumed was general spending money for his trip. 

Luke claims Jeffries’ assistants started engaging in role-play making him act like one of the shirtless greeters you’d see at the local mall. 

"It didn't seem like anything too out of the ordinary for me because even working at an Abercrombie store when I was younger, there was guys who would stand outside shirtless. That was like a trademark thing," says Luke.

Things got weird after he was told that two people were about to walk in and he had to impress them. Out walked Jeffries and his partner Smith, emerging from a corner of the room. Luke alleges the two men started touching him and Jeffries “forcibly kissed him” before the boss then performed oral sex on him.

"I was trying to avoid the whole situation as much as I could, but Michael (Jeffries) was very aggressive,” Luke said.

“I tried to say no repeatedly. And then I just got kind of convinced to do something. But I constantly was saying no, and I wanted to go.”

Luke, who identifies as straight, said he experienced a ton of shame once he got back to the US and didn’t report what happened because of the non-disclosure agreement he was forced to sign before the event and because he was embarrassed that he was taken advantage of by another man.

"There's an immense amount of shame associated with this idea that you're not a masculine man if you've been molested or taken advantage of by another man," said Luke.

"My whole life I've struggled with people thinking that I'm gay and I got bullied in high school because I have a soft voice. The last thing on earth I was going to do is say something emasculating, like, I got molested and orally raped by a guy,” he said.

Allegation: Drugging Victims with Liquid Viagra

Mr Jeffries' assistants injected some attendees of some attendees in the penis with what they were told was liquid Viagra, according to multiple men.

A victim who goes by Chris told the BBC he felt he was "going to die" after one of these injections at Jeffries’ New York homes and left him feeling “hot and dizzy." He said he was in shock and waiting for someone to call an ambulance but nobody called one. Still disorientated, he said Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith, who had been waiting in another room, then tried to have sex with him.

Allegation: Boat Cruise

Keith Milkie, another male victim who identifies as straight, said he attended multiple events hosted by the couple Jeffries and Smith between 2012 and 2014.

Keith Milkie says he attended numerous events hosted by Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith between 2012 and 2014. He was struggling to pay his rent after he moved to New York for an agent who ran a house full of aspiring models. He said one of his roommates suggested he escort and a contact later introduced him to Jeffries’ alleged middleman, Mr Jacobson.

He said he found some of Jeffries’ events “uncomfortable and painful.” Allegedly in Paris, Jeffries told him to have sex with another man, which he “did not want or enjoy.” Another time, he said he was abused verbally by Jeffries after telling him he didn’t want to participate in a risky sexual act on board the Queen Mary 2. Milkie said Jeffries was drunk and tried inserting a “bleeding finger” into him.

"I was in the bed putting on a fake smile, crying on the inside," he says. "Here I am in the middle of the ocean having this person four times my age in that position of power and influence belittle me to death and literally call me worthless… simply because I said no to something."

Milkie said Jacobson paid him about $24,000 in cash for the week-long cruise.

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Les Wexner Hired Mike Jeffries to Run A&F

So who gave Mike Jeffries the keys to be the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch for more than 20 years?

None other than billionaire Les Wexner himself, CEO of LBrands, the Ohio-based conglomerate that owned Victoria’s Secret, Pink and Bath & Body Works and Abercrombie & Fitch at the time. Les Wexner, is mostly known these days as Jeffrey Epstein’s only client. 

“Les knows everything about me. He knows every experience I’ve had,” Epstein once said to a friend.

Wexner hired Mike Jeffries to be the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, officially handing the keys over to him in 1992. 

SEC filings from the early nineties and mid 2000’s list Epstein as one of the three trustees of of The Wexner Foundation, as well as several of Wexner’s other charitable organizations, including Arts Interests, Health and Science Interests, Health and Science Interests II, The Wexner Children’s Trust II, and International Charitable Interests.

Epstein was Wexner’s power of attorney in 1991, which gave him unmitigated control over all of Wexner’s assets, allowing him permission to sign checks, buy and sell property, and borrow money on Wexner’s behalf. Epstein remained Wexner’s personal money manager for two decades until Wexner cut ties with Epstein in 2007 after Palm Beach arrest for soliciting a minor for prostitution. 

Wexner famously sold Epstein a $20 million New York City townhouse for pennies on the dollar, a mega real estate property that was cited in reports by Epstein victims as a regular location for alleged abuse. In 1996, Maria Farmer claimed she was assaulted by Epstein while working on an art project at Wexner’s Ohio estate where Epstein also lived. Allegedly, Epstein’s famous private jet, dubbed “Lolita Express,” was a plane previously owned by Wexner and used to shuttle young women around the world for Epstein, and LBrand’s, benefit.

When Epstein was arrested, Wexner sent a letter out to employees stating he was “NEVER aware of the illegal activity charged in the indictment” and “would never have guessed that a person I employed more than a decade ago could have caused such pain to so many people.” He also claimed he himself was a victim of Epstein, claiming that Epstein stole $46 million from him. Washington Post reporter Sarah Ellison called out Wexner for never pressing charges against Epstein, noting that it is in Wexner’s character to be “litigious” and not to let something like this slide.

When trying to understand the dynamic between Wexner and Epstein, author Michael Gross explained their relationship by saying that “Epstein had a reputation for worming his way into the lives of older successful Jewish men.”

Former L Brands executives claim that in the mid 90s Epstein was trying to get involved in recruiting models for the Victoria’s Secret catalog and side stepping professional agencies.

As mentioned above in the Jeffries lawsuit, you’ll notice that Jeffries also had an alleged middleman that would recruit and vet men to bring back to Jeffries, acting as an agency, a typical pattern in these sex trafficking operations.

Wexner handed the keys of Abercrombie & Fitch over to Mike Jeffries in 1992 and for the next 20 years Jeffries revived the company’s finances while getting himself wrapped up into an international sex trafficking scandal of his own.

Mega Group

In 1991, Wexner cofounded a philanthropic organization of Jewish billionaires known as the Mega Group, which uses some of its vast resources to shape Middle East policy. In 2003, Wexner’s foundation commissioned GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz to advise American Jewish leaders on how to rally support for Israel. “For a year—a SOLID YEAR—you should be invoking the name of Saddam Hussein and how Israel was always behind American efforts to rid the world of this ruthless dictator and liberate their people,” Luntz’s recommendation stated.

Epstein kept close in that circle of influence. U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson and Middle East envoy George Mitchell allegedly participated in Epstein’s sex ring, according to a lawsuit filed by Giuffre. (Richardson and Mitchell adamantly deny the allegations.) Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak was an Epstein confidant. Epstein invested $1 million in one of Barak’s business ventures; Barak reportedly visited the East 66th Street condo building. Dershowitz told me he once arrived at Epstein’s town house as Epstein and Barak were wrapping up lunch. On a chalkboard, Barak had drawn a map of how the West Bank should be divided. (Barak could not be reached for comment. In 2019 he denied any wrongdoing related to the condo visits.)

-Vanity Fair

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What’s Next for Jeffries?

Mike Jeffries was released on a $10 million dollar bond Tuesday afternoon. Jeffries’ partner, Matthew Smith, is being detained after being seen as a flight risk. Jacobson was released on a $500,000 bond.

If convicted of sex trafficking, each defendant will face a maximum sentence of life in prison and minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted of interstate prostitution charges.

An attorney for Smith, Brian Bieber, said Tuesday, “We will respond in detail to the allegations after the indictment is unsealed, and when appropriate, but plan to do so in the courthouse — not the media.”

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Celebrities Who Modeled For Abercrombie Before they Were Famous

Online accounts have been buzzing with resurfaced articles highlighting famous celebrities who modeled for Abercrombie before their big break. Channing Tatum, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lawrence, Karlie Kloss, Lindsay Lohan, Lana Del Rey, Kellan Lutz, Ashton Kutcher and even Penn Badgley.  

Of course, internet sleuths continue to wonder if these Abercrombie and Victoria Secret models -turned- A-List celebrities were also victims of quid pro quo sexual abuse. Given the entangled dynamics of these men in power with proximity to billion dollar brands, are these questions really far fetched to ask?

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The Abercrombie Dream is Now a Ghost

I outgrew of my Abergirl phase when I went to performing arts school. My roommate was a hippie named Marigold who introduced me to indie music, aura colors and suede slouchy boots. I emptied my closet out of mini skirts and t-shirts in favor of sundresses and aviator shades.

That first year though, I got a job at the Riverside Tyler mall as an Abercrombie “model,” working 3 hour shifts for $6 an hour, bored out of my mind folding shirts that nobody was buying anymore. The store was dead, at least in Southern California. Once Urban Outfitters hit the mall in 2008, Abercrombie really died. It wasn’t cool to be a popular bitch anymore. It was cool to listen to vinyls, figure out your moon sign and dance aggressively to PlayRadioRlay! 

When the news first broke yesterday morning that Abercrombie is facing sex trafficking charges, I sat in silence for a long time, trying to recall all the memories I had with the brand. At first, I had pleasant feelings: thinking of the techno music blasting through the loudspeakers and the cozy red moose pajamas that kept me warm all winter.

But as I sat with my memories, I realized that Abercrombie also played a role in destroying my innocence too soon. The sexualized ads showing picture perfect teenagers my age not only distorted my perception of beauty but also normalized exploring promiscuous relationships at a young age. Sex always sells, but marketing risqué photos to teenagers in development feels different now. Somehow we let one of the weirdest looking CEOS in the fashion industry trick us all into thinking being slutty and bitchy was cool.

Despite an effortful rebrand, Abercrombie is falling down. And it’s healing our childhood body shame in ways that ayuhasca and sound baths never could, no amount of kundalini yoga could heal the way we felt walking through Abercrombie wondering why our ankle couldn’t fit their famous double zero. 

After reading these disturbing lawsuits, it might be time to toss the ripped jeans for good, a purchase my grandpa always thought was stupid anyways. 

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