White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch

It's incomplete, at best. Context is everything, and mall culture of the late 90s/early 2000s had specific aesthetics for each store. Express and Guess employees had high heels and were dripping in makeup, Tommy Hilfiger's had baggy clothes and fades, Hot Topic's wore head to toe black and lots of eyeliner. Abercrombie was no different. This "documentary" is an hour and a half of clickbait.

Start your own brand or wear another. The time spent interviewing, court appeals, etc.. you could of all got together and made some brain storming on creating a brand to reach your ideal demographic and employing your « ideal look ». Compete against the brand you find unjust and let the customer determine your success. And Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, etc... they were any different ??? I am not blond, nor American. Their store perfume gave me a headache every time. I still say bravo to A&F for creating a brilliant successful brand. Can you do that?

Dei: how dare you hire people based on what they look like. Solution, hire people based on what they look like... because skin color matters, but it's not suppose to, unless it's for dei...

Is fubu still a thing? Did white people work there?

Could have been a good, interesting story about a company that skyrocketed and the culture that propelled it.

Instead it was just more woke anti-white rhetoric.

I hate writing reviews but decided to write this one after reading several clearly biased reviews on this documentary.

Coming in 2 minutes shy of the 90 minute mark this documentary can give you a bit of whiplash. Brace yourself for a fun but bumpy ride.

What they got right. The former staff interviews hit all their proper marks. The background info on how A&F came to be and how it took itself down by their own policies as informative as reading a NYT write-up about it.

What they got wrong,. Wwll that's easier to explain. They needed more time. I can't believe I'm going to say this but I think this should have been a 2-3 part documentary wat 40 minutes each episode. The reason why I say this is because it truly was rushed. Nothing new was brought to light. No deep dive. It was like the cliftnotes version of what happened.

Yes, we know A&F had a inclusion problem but give me some background on why. Meaning, there are several companies at the time that marketed the exact same way. Yes, they briefly mentioned Polo and CK, but what happened to Structure, Express, Banana Republic? Just my opinion, but I do believe they needed more time to bring in their point.

I could go on and on but I think those were the key things I wanted to point out.

There was so much more about A&F, as well as the Wexner empire.

We needed more tracing the money trails and payouts.

Sexual harassment was barely detailed.

The diversity officer was allowed to not answer questions asked.

This was basically the video version of a wikipedia entry.

Why then did I give it five points?

At least it brought the topic up about corporations and branding, targeting consumers, and the impact CEO's decisions can have on consumers' lives and perceptions.

Really, however, it was superficial, which is very sad.