Poor Abercrombie’s been having a hell of a time with this whole recession thing.
Last winter they refused to cut prices pre-Christmas which led to devastating losses and now, they’ve announced they’re closing Ruehl. A good friend worked at Abercrombie’s Ohio headquarters while Ruehl launched and here’s why, according to her, it bombed:
“At first their product was awesome, it was so different from anything else on the market. But it didn’t catch on immediately (most new things don’t) and instead of giving it a proper chance, they caved to corporate pressure and turned it into just another A&F. If they’d just stuck to the original idea without conforming to the A&F model, it would have made it through this downturn.
They didn’t differentiate themselves from their umbrella brand and you can’t draw an older, brand new demographic with the same merchandise they wore in high school. You can’t use sex to sell to a 29-year-old woman like you do a 17-year-old. Like look at Madewell. J.Crew’s offshoot does so well because it’s completely different from J.Crew - an original idea as opposed to a recycled version of the same thing.
Not to mention, no one even knew what Ruehl was.”
So there you have it. If you wanted to pay extra for your moose-embossed polo you should probably go now, all twenty-nine stores will be closed by the end of the year.
posted by guest
Jun 17, 2009 1:06PM
Non fashion comparison but...this reminds me of when some new series on TV gets pulled off air after so little time to find it's footing, and everybody talks about how a lot of the time you have to give a show time to grow, like how Seinfeld's first season started out with okay-ish ratings and then it became...Seinfeld