COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Earlier this month, federal prosecutors announced the former CEO of New Albany-based brand Abercrombie & Fitch, Mike Jeffries, had been indicted on 16 federal charges, including sex trafficking and prostitution, along with two other men.
The criminal case comes after years of allegations of sexual misconduct, some of which are included in two documentaries that have now gained new relevance. The films offer audiences a deeper understanding of Jeffries’s meticulously crafted public image and the disturbing claims that emerged behind the scenes.
The 2022 Netflix documentary “White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch,” directed by Alison Klayman and available on the streamer, highlights the exclusionary culture Jeffries promoted within the brand, while only briefly delving into the sex accusations. The 88-minute expose includes interviews with past A&F employees, from retail stores to home office executives and brand “models.”
“You know that you’re getting close when you’re hit with the smell of Abercrombie, the nightclub beats and bare-chested guys,” the Netflix promo opens with various voices edited together. “It was such a pop culture phenomenon. It was the All-American look.”
An IMDb reviewer, who gave the documentary seven out of 10 stars, noted that the film “hit all their proper marks” in its former staff interviews but felt like a “cliff notes version” and suggested that it “should have been a 2-3 part documentary” for a comprehensive “deep dive.”
The 2023 BBC documentary, “The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side of Cool,” part of the British series “Panorama,” listed on IMDb as Season 71, Episode 30, deals specifically with the sexual abuse assertions. According to Abercrombie, the unsettling claims recorded in the film prompted the fashion brand to perform an independent investigation with an external law firm.
The 59-minute film, directed by Edward McGown is available to watch through the AppleTV and Prime Video apps with a BBC Select subscription, which offers a free seven-day trial.
“Former CEO Mike Jeffries transformed Abercrombie and Fitch from a failing retail chain to a multibillion-dollar empire and the epitome of cool,” the BBC Select description reads. “Now, after months of painstaking investigation, reporter Rianna Croxford speaks to men who say they were recruited into a dark world, created to satisfy the sexual fantasies of Mike Jeffries and his British partner Matthew Smith.”
In the promo, one former model describes being “presented to someone to do what they wanted,” adding that his experience “changed my life — and not for the better.”
Another model states, “I was not a human to any of these people. I was a body.”
An IMDb review titled “The Depth Of Fashion,” which gives the film seven out of 10 stars, calls the episode “quite a story exposing as it does the alleged criminal conduct of … Mike Jeffries and his … silent partner, Matthew Smith.” The reviewer adds that despite its controversial “trial-by-media” feeling, it reveals “the depraved sexual tastes of the rich and powerful.”
“The point is forcibly made … that while the ‘#MeToo’ movement … has shone a long-overdue spotlight on the sexual exploitation of young women by rich and powerful old men, similar claims like the ones made here, only this time by young men, have been largely overlooked,” the reviewer wrote.
