Abercrombie and Fitch Encourages Women to Be Their Best

Sunset joggers on a nude beach in Mexico.

Originally uploaded by PhotoFusion

… just so long as it involves nudity. Drumroll please… Abercrombie and Fitch has lauched Gilly Hicks of Sydney, an underwear company complete with an Austrailan sun-drenched backstory. It’s sort of like Abbie Winters, but for perfect people. There’s some debate around whether it is a real brand launch and that they’ll later actually sell things, or whether their design is solely to get attention and put some sexy in Abercromie since they can’t have their models ride horses in the nude anymore. Which, by the way, the horses never liked.

Frankly, I don’t care either way but I like the approach purely for marketing purposes. You build a backstory, enhance the brand with imagery, continue to sell teenage fantasy. Of course, some argue that it isn’t teenage fantasy but rather fantasy about teenagers — and they may have a point here. But I still like the move and the video made me want to move to Australia.