#FitchTheHomeless: donating clothes as campaigning against a company’s policy
Howard Lake | 4 June 2013 | Blogs
Los Angeles-based writer Greg Karber is redistributing donated Abercrombie & Fitch clothing to homeless people as a way of publicly criticising the company’s CEO’s attitudes. He is urging other people to follow his example.
He was disgusted at Abercrombie & Fitch’s CEO Mike Jeffries’ comments that he “doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store.” He wanted to challenge the brand’s exclusive focus on “the cool kids” by ensuring that homeless people would also be seen wearing unwanted A&F clothes, sourced from charity and goodwill shops.
Karber filmed his campaign in action, and the video has been seen more than 7 million times already.
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[Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O95DBxnXiSo no longer available].
He says that he aims to make Abercrombie & Fitch “the world’s number one brand of homeless apparel.”
His campaign has drawn criticism that it objectifies homeless people and demeans them, but he says that that was not his intention.
All charitable giving has a reason: this is one example of where it comes with an edge.
Some of the campaigning messages
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.