A few columns ago some of my less aware readers may have learned something – to wit, Colonel Sanders, while not an actual colonel, did exist. [His military rank was a Kentucky State honor and was not related to his actual military service.] This quality of having actually existed is a distinction he shares with some, but not all, of America’s greatest commercial icons.
In the world of business there are a lot of names and personalities, icons and mascots. It can be quite difficult to know who actually existed and who is fictional, and it is utterly impossible to define what appreciable difference it makes.
Everybody loves Betty Crocker because she, like most women, is more or less imaginary. At the same time Duncan Hines is rightly looked at with a good deal of suspicion because he, like far too many men, actually existed. The McDonald brothers were real even if it was milkshake-mixer salesman Ray Kroc who brought their culinary ingenuity to the world.
Most scholars agree that there never was a reign of a “Burger King,” although Dave Thomas apparently did have a daughter named Wendy. Did she look like a Carrot-Top Swiss Miss? No one really knows.
Swiss Miss herself is an interesting case. While there is no assertion that she ever actually existed, this vague archetypical mountain dweller who supplied weary travelers with curiously sub-par hot cocoa does bear a disturbing resemblance to the St. Pauli Girl. Apparently the little miss grew to womanhood, came down from the Chalet and morphed from Alpine sweetheart to lowland German strumpet. The only upside is that now her guests don’t seem to mind so much that creating a palatable beverage was never her strong suit. As the old maxim goes, sell the bodice not the beer.
Back here on American soil there are two names in the commercial pantheon that recently stirred my curiosity. For those of you who are lucky enough not to know much about the clothing merchants Abercrombie and Fitch the key piece of information is that A & F seems to sell clothes but don’t seem very interested in their models actually wearing them. They seem to believe that the best way to sell clothes is to photograph people who are not wearing any. I walked passed an A & F store recently and saw a picture of a fine looking young man not wearing a shirt. The photo was cropped at his waist, so if the intent was to sell pants, I am not sure what they looked like. To me this is curious.
Since I attempt to save my curiosity for the great questions, I resolved to uncover the story of the two men who created this odd clothing company. Here for the betterment of the community I present the history of Misters Abercrombie and Fitch and their curious clothing philosophy.
Isaiah Obadiah Malachi Abercrombie was born in 1820 in the Indian Territories that would eventually be known as Greenwich, Connecticut. Even for his day his tripartite Christian name was a little excessive. As he would later tell his shareholders, “I was born to be a prophet, not to make a profit.”
After a rather serious bout of brain fever as a teenager, Abercrombie laid down some of the theological suppositions that would guide the rest of his life. Abercrombie realized that in the story of Adam and Eve, God’s only evidence of Man’s first sin was the fact that they acquired shame at their own nakedness. Abercrombie reasoned that if people could overcome this primal shame of being naked then they were well on their way to reversing the effect of Adam’s Sin. “To stand before God wearing only the britches of righteousness is be clothed in the glory of salvation,” became Abercrombie’s theological rallying cry.
When Abercrombie attempted to secure his own trouserless salvation in his small town he was on multiple occasions “forcibly manacled in the pants of damnation” by his neighbors. Eventually he was tarred and feather by the townspeople who by all accounts did not wish to hurt Abercrombie but could think of no other way to ensure that their annual church picnic would not be spoiled by him for the third year in a row.
Abercrombie then moved to a small town in Maine where he started to gather followers in a “salvation colony.” In the summer of 1845 he established the nudist town of “New Eden” near Portland, Maine. The next spring the town reestablished itself in Hot Springs, Georgia. Of his experiences in Maine, Abercrombie wrote, “The Church misunderstands damnation. Hell is not a place of fire. It is a cold, cold place, and there are lobsters. Do not get me started on the lobsters.”
Georgia was not accommodating to the young religion. Abercrombie was arrested on charges of corrupting the youths. This charge was later reduced to “confusing the young” and he was sentenced to fifteen days in jail.
During his incarceration, Abercrombie began to draft political pamphlets claiming that his legal troubles were part of a larger nationwide conspiracy. He claimed that he was being targeted the by the “waistcoat lobby” and “Big Britches.”
Also while in jail he met a young insurance salesman named Samuel Fitch, who had been found guilty of selling fraudulent “marital insurance” to the townsfolk. Fitch claimed that this insurance would cover all the costs of exchanging one’s spouse should the desire to do so arise. Clearly he was a man ahead of his time.
Fitch and Abercrombie became fast friends. Fitch himself did not share Abercrombie’s theological vision, but he liked the idea of people walking around “in the all-together.” Fitch suggested that they needed a better strategy for undermining social convention. He suggested they should start a clothing store committed to making clothes that people would want to take off. At first Abercrombie was hesitant since this seemed counter-intuitive and Brooks Brothers already existed.
During their last night in jail Abercrombie had a dream. He saw a great statue with a body of gold, a head of silver and clothes made of clay. He saw Fitch blow a great trumpet and the clay was shattered. He awoke the next day, and agreed to Fitch’s idea. The rest is history.
I hope this example shows that with a little historical perspective the most curious human institutions can be laid bare … metaphorically, that is.
Until next time, I am wearing my Levi’s. (A nice Jewish-boy Levi Strauss. Seriously.)
