Prudishness in the Grauniad?

I would not have been at all surprised to read this in the Telegraph, but even the Guardian thinks that Abercrombie and Fitch produces too much sexual advertising and is lowering the tone of Savile Row. Reassuringly it finds a racial angle to the whole thing:

It appointed a diversity and inclusion officer to increase the number of non-white employees in its stores, from 10% in 2004 to 53% in 2011, but there have been two recent lawsuits filed by women who alleged they were discriminated against for wearing a hijab.

although in my experience at least half of the employees are hyper-skinny Chinese or half-Asian girls, coupled with extremely well-dressed and well-coordinated young men, who if not actually batting for the other side are certainly fraternising with the enemy; I feel the Grauniad is on rather shaky ground. If you were accusing A+F of being ageist, sizeist, or anti-minger, I'd say you have a slam dunk.

Oppressed customer Andy Pike, however, is spot on:

"It's a loathsome experience," says Andy Pike, 47, a risk analyst for a bank, who leaves with a present for his niece. "It's so contrived, it's overpriced. It was so dark I couldn't tell what colour something was." And the music is so loud! He nods. "That makes us sound really old doesn't it? I'm not the target customer."

Andy, my friend, you should seek out your local Hollister store and spend fifteen minutes there; given the choice, you would dive back into A+F and welcome it.

For the reason why this article was commissioned, look at the opening:

This week a protest was staged to stop it opening a second store – this time selling the Abercrombie childrenswear brand – on the Row itself.
"This is one street in a city full of chain stores and it's not the right place for Abercrombie & Fitch," says Gustav Temple, editor of The Chap magazine ("a journal for the modern gentleman"), who organised the protest.

Ah, the old "they lower the tone" argument. Just buy them out, chaps. If you're not willing to pony up the cash for that then suck it up and stop whining to the newspapers; you can't expect the taxpayer to do it for you. Whiny old farts.