Dear Mr. Jeffries,

Congratulations on recently making headlines with your strategy of only selling clothes to those whom you define as cool, pretty and thin: http://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-wants-thin-customers-2013-5#ixzz2SoRlwYlN.

You’ve certainly grabbed a lot of attention and clearly made your point.

As you said, “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. 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.”

You have every right to your opinion and your business strategy. But here’s what you apparently don’t get: most of us (people who will never set foot in your store) don’t really care whom you define as cool, and we don’t care that you won’t sell us your over-priced clothes. We see you in the same light that we saw the “cool kids” in high school.

We didn’t actually think they were all that cool. Instead, we thought they were self-absorbed and incredibly superficial.

You (as they did) base coolness on appearance, access to money and whom you associate with. Ironically, the only people who hang out with your are also people who only care about superficial appearances.

There’s no depth. There’s no empathy or compassion for others. And there’s no understanding that life is so much bigger than your very small and limited materialistic world.

In the real world, where everyone else lives, life is so much more than what size you wear, how much you paid for your clothes or all the places where your wealth will take you.

It’s about knowing that you can never count on your looks for anything and building upon your other strengths instead.

It’s about walking into a room and being appreciated for what you can contribute to the conversation rather than for what clothes you wear.

And it’s about supporting others rather than rubbing disadvantages in their faces.

Enjoy your fortune while it lasts, Mr. Jeffries, but be warned.

I’ve got two children who won’t ever buy clothes in your store.

I know their current buying habits are of no interest to you (because neither fits your definition of cool), but I think you should know who they are.

They are both very smart and don’t care whether you or anyone else thinks they are popular or cool. They just care that they are happy and making the world a better place.

Such aspirations have never required buying and wearing a certain brand of clothes.

So watch out, Mr. Jeffries. My children represent the next generation of consumers, and they have loud voices.

Sincerely,

Trina Bartlett