Arrogance Forced Abercrombie and Fitch

There are only 25 Ruehl stores in the US today, and anyone who has ever visited one will admit – its a VERY unique store. Instead of the storefront being floor to ceiling windows, it looks like a brick mansion that you’d find in Greenwich Village. Right down to the wrought iron fence, concrete walkway, subway/air grates and doors that look like they could come right from an a building in Greenwich Village. The inside is equally as impressive – the store is broken up into rooms, with a long hallway going down the center, dividing the womens and mens sections. The check outs are in the rear of the store – in a room that looks like it could be the garage, with exposed wooden beams and walls. Some rooms were even on different “floors” a good 2 or 3 feet higher than the other floor.

This article may be a bit off topic for my regular followers – and for that I apologize, but I wanted to chime in on the news that abercrombie and fitch has decided to close their Ruehl concept stores throughout America.

When I was younger – I definitely fell for the whole abercrombie and fitch look, the smell of the stores and just the overall “coolness” that seemed to exude from the brand, the clothes and the stores. As I got older, I realized I hated paying as much as I did for the clothes from abercrombie and fitch, they always seemed to shrink, and the styles just seemed to continue to look more and more ridiculous.

About 5 years ago Abercrombie launched a new concept – Ruehl 925 – the premise was the store was based in Greenwich Village NYC, in the mansion of a rich family with the surname “Ruehl”. The clothes were somewhat Abercrombie-like, but had a much more adult feel, were still a little expensive, but overall seemed to be less expensive than
abercrombie and fitch
. You wouldn’t find a jacket and tie appropriate for a business meeting at Ruehl, but you could easily find leisure or “going out” clothes that were eons away from the Guess/Armani Exchange look.

But the thing that really drew me INTO the Ruehl stores was the store design.