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Netflix’s documentary White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch charts the messy trajectory of the once-cooler-than-cool mall store that peaked in the ’90s and early 2000s, only to come crashing down after a string of racist, exclusionary controversies. The man at the center of the brand’s peaks and valleys? Mike Jeffries, A&F’s former CEO, who’s described by the documentary’s subjects as “private,” a “micromanager,” a creative “mad genius,” and simply “bizarre.” He has since reappeared in headlines for more startling reasons: In October 2024, he was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and interstate prostitution. The federal indictment, per NBC News, alleges that Jeffries and his associates “employed coercive, fraudulent and deceptive tactics in connection with the recruitment, hiring, transportation, obtaining, maintaining, solicitation, and payment of men to engage in commercial sex.”
Leslie Wexner first brought California-born Jeffries onto A&F in 1992, and hoped Jeffries could revamp the century-old brand. At the time, Jeffries was known as the former president of Alcott & Andrews, a women’s retail chain that filed for bankruptcy in 1989. Wexner, on the other hand, was the king of retail; he was the CEO of A&F’s then-parent company L Brands, which owned stores like The Limited and Victoria’s Secret. The documentary describes how it was Jeffries’ strategy to center this new iteration of A&F around elitism, sex, and exclusivity. According to the doc, Jeffries had rigid perceptions of masculinity and femininity, which he infused into A&F’s image.
Jeffries also brought on famed photographer Bruce Weber, who’s credited with helping to establish the aesthetic of the company’s former golden age. (All those A&F shopping bags with black-and-white photos of half-naked men? Part of Weber’s vision.)
In recent years, more than 20 current and former models have come forward to accuse Weber of sexual assault and exploitation. He has since settled two sexual assault lawsuits, and in October 2024 he was arrested for allegedly operating an “international sex trafficking and prostitution business from 2008 to 2015,” alongside his longtime life partner Matthew Smith and associate James Jacobson, per NBC News.
Wexner has also come under scrutiny for his close ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who was found dead while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Wexner retired as CEO of L Brands in 2020 and left the board in March 2021.
Mike Jeffries and Bruce Weber in 2005.
At first, under Jeffries, A&F saw incredible success, and in 1996, he took the company public. But he was also the leader as A&F confronted scandal after scandal. In 2002, there were protests over racist T-shirts and suggestive thongs marketed to pre-teen girls. A group of ex-employees sued A&F in a class-action lawsuit in 2003 for racial discrimination. (A&F settled for $40 million and admitted no wrongdoing.) And then there was the rare interview Jeffries gave to Salon in 2006. In the story, Jeffries is described as a “quirky perfectionist and control freak,” who always goes through the revolving doors at A&F headquarters twice and never passes other employees on the stairwells. During the interview, he infamously said: “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
Jeffries leaving an Abercrombie & Fitch store in Paris in 2012 as employees protest their working conditions.
From there, the controversies only continued to mount. In 2012, Bloomberg reported on an “Aircraft Standards” manual for the A&F executive jet, written by Smith. (The manual was made public in an age-discrimination lawsuit brought against the company by a former pilot, according to Bloomberg.) The manual included 40 pages of highly detailed instructions, including what kind of underwear aircraft staff should wear and the seating arrangements for Jeffries’s dogs. Then in 2013, BuzzFeed News published reporting that Smith was “one of the most powerful people” at A&F, even though he wasn’t technically employed and his role was “never formally reported” to shareholders. Per the report, “Two former executives used the word ‘dangerous’ when describing Smith, citing the fact that he is organizationally unaccountable if something were to go wrong with regard to a decision he’s made.”
After reports of struggling sales, Jeffries finally stepped down from A&F in December 2014, nearly a year after he was removed as chairman. In June 2015, Samantha Elauf won a Supreme Court case against A&F after the company refused to hire her because she wore a headscarf.
Once he departed A&F, Jeffries mostly stayed out of the news. Some of the biggest updates were that, in 2015, the company sold the corporate jet, and in 2016, Jeffries listed his Manhattan townhouse for $19.5 million. He then relisted it a year later for $16 million, per ELLE Decor, and it ended up selling in 2018 for $12.9 million.
But in 2023, he was back in headlines again after a BBC investigation found that a group of men alleged Jeffries and Smith exploited them for sex during events they hosted around the world. The outlet stated: “Two former US prosecutors who independently reviewed documents and testimony uncovered by the BBC have called for an investigation to determine whether charges for sex trafficking could be brought.” The FBI and federal prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York conducted that investigation, according to The Washington Post, and charges were indeed brought in October 2024.
In a statement released on October 22, 2024, attorney Brittany Henderson said, “Today’s arrests are monumental for the aspiring male models who were victimized by these individuals. Their fight for justice does not end here. We look forward to holding Abercrombie and Fitch liable for facilitating this terrible conduct and ensuring that this cannot happen again.”
Fran Horowitz is A&F’s current CEO, and under her, the brand has transformed, this time focusing on diversity, size inclusivity, and a more understated, trendier clothing selection. But much like the A&F cologne that smacks you in the face on your way into the store, Jeffries’s influence on the brand continues to linger.
Watch White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch on Netflix now.
Madison is the digital deputy editor at ELLE, where she also covers news, politics, and culture. If she’s not online, she’s probably napping or trying not to fall while rock climbing.
Lauren Puckett-Pope is a staff culture writer at ELLE, where she primarily covers film, television and books. She was previously an associate editor at ELLE.