Fitchco history

1917: Abercrombie & Fitch relocates to flagship store on Madison Avenue in New York.

Fitch retired in 1928, selling his interest in the company to his brother-in-law, James S. Cobb, who became president, and an employee, Otis L. Guernsey, who became vice-president.

Net sales and income, rising steadily in this decade, reached a record $6.3 million and $548,000, respectively, in 1929.

In 1930 Cobb bought Griffin & Howe, a gunsmith shop.

Sales in the grip of the Great Depression fell to $2,598,925 in fiscal year 1933, when a loss of $521,118 was recorded, on top of a loss of $241,211 the previous year.

Subsequent years were profitable, and in 1938 Abercrombie & Fitch resumed paying dividends.

By 1939 A&F was calling itself the "Greatest Sporting Goods Store in the World." It boasted the world's largest and most valuable collection of firearms and the widest assortment of fishing flies obtainable anywhere (15,000 in all) to accompany its array of rods, reels, and other fishing tackle.

In 1958 Abercrombie & Fitch opened a store in San Francisco.

In his first year at the helm, Cobb acquired a similar New York business, Von Lengerke & Detmold, respected for its European-made sporting guns and fishing tackle, and Von Lengerke & Antoine, the Chicago branch, which became a subsidiary of A&F but continued until 1959 under its own name.

In fiscal 1960, net sales rose to a record $16.5 million, but net profits fell for the fourth straight year, to $185,649.

In 1968, a year in which city riots, protests against the war in Vietnam, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy seemed to be tearing the country apart, Abercrombie & Fitch was finally ready to shake up its way of doing business by holding a warehouse sale.

One advertising man described management as 'ossified,' and another said company officers had no faith in television's ability to draw in customers even after its first TV commercials, in 1969, filled the store.

Abercrombie & Fitch ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 1977 and was acquired by Oshman's Sporting Goods.

Oshman's Sporting Goods bought A&F in 1978 and hoped to parlay its fame into a broad mix of sporting goods and apparel, as well as a wide range of other products.

A bigger Dallas store opened in 1980, complete with $40,000 elephant guns and an Abercrombie Runabout sports convertible for $20,775.

Abercrombie & Fitch returned to New York City in 1984, opening in the renovated South Street Seaport area of lower Manhattan.

Net sales reached an estimated $40 million to $45 million in 1985.

By the end of 1986 the chain had grown to 26 stores, including a second Manhattan outlet in midtown's glitzy Trump Tower.

Paris, Ellen, "Endangered Species? Abercrombie & Fitch," in Forbes, 9 March 1987.

In 1988 Abercrombie & Fitch was bought by The Limited, Inc.

When Frame-Kasaks left to head Ann Taylor in February 1992, she was succeeded as president of Abercrombie & Fitch by Michael Jeffries, an executive at Paul Harris Stores.

Moreover, the Abercrombie & Fitch division established new records for merchandise margin rate and profitability for its parent, The Limited, in 1994.

There were 67 Abercrombie & Fitch stores at the end of January 1995, compared to 49 a year earlier.

Brady, James, "Abercrombie & Fitch Forgets Its Days of Hem &Wolfie," in Advertising Age, 31 August 1998.

Amid reports that the company's growth might be slowing, its stock dropped but rebounded again after the 1999 holiday selling-season produced satisfactory results.

Perman, Stacy, “Fashion Forward: Abercrombie’s Beefcake Brigade,” Time, February 14, 2000.

Wilson, Eric, "A&F: The Butts Start Here," in Women's Wear Daily, 5 February 2001.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, in 2002 Abercrombie & Fitch received substantial public backlash from Asian Americans for T-shirts featuring caricatures with slanted eyes and rice-paddy hats.

There was a class action lawsuit filed against Abercrombie & Fitch in 2003, alleging the company engaged in discriminatory hiring practices against African American, Latino and Asian American applicants.

In 2004, the brand launched Ruehl 248, which Bloomberg says was the only Abercrombie subsidiary permitted to sell black apparel.

Next came questions about Jeffries and his compensation packages, including an investigation into A&F's corporate governance in 2005.

In a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries said that his business was built around sex appeal.

In 2008, it started its underwear and loungewear store Gilly Hicks.

By the early 2010’s, A&F had nearly 1,000 stores in total spanning the globe from Japan to England to its first ever home of Manhattan.

But in 2013, The New York Post reported that Abercrombie & Fitch had plans to close Gilly Hicks stores.

Jeffries left in 2014, following 11 straight quarters of same-store sales declines.

The company overhauled its stringent "hot" salesclerk policy in 2015, although some loose rules still apply ("They still can’t wear extreme makeup or jewelry, but the rules are gentle, Lindsay Rupp of Bloomberg wrote).

On Twitter, both A&F and Hollister accounts have had a declining following count since 2016.

On Facebook, people started "Unliking" Hollister's page after it hit its peak in early 2018.

A&F Co. named to the 2021 Best Workplaces in Retail™ List by Fortune Magazine and Great Place to Work®