We told you last week about Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries only wanting his brand’s clothing worn by “cool kids” — i.e. no one that falls outside the stereotypical “All American” standards of beauty, including girls over a size 10. “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong,” Jeffries once said in an interview. “Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

To make matters worse, it seems that less-than-cool kids aren’t the only people who don’t “belong” in A&F clothing — when garments are damaged and/or cannot be sold, rather than donating the clothes to people who need them, the company reportedly burns them. Why? Because homeless people aren’t the sort of brand representation A&F wants. So basically, Abercrombie has sent this branding message into the universe: “Six-pack abs and chiseled jaw required. Soul optional”.

In response, Greg Karber decided to give Abercrombie a brand makeover. After sifting through the “douchebag section” of his local Goodwill thrift shop for donated A&F clothing, Karber headed to LA’s Skid Row to hand out the clothes to the homeless, who, after displaying initial reluctance to accept the clothing (which Karber attributes to a fear of looking like “narcissistic date rapists”), eventually accepted the A&F clothes, completing phase one of Karber’s mission.

However, in the video below, Karber says that he can’t “clothe the homeless or transform a brand” all by his lonesome, and urges viewers to get involved. A grassroots re-branding campaign to teach a company to grow a soul? Like we said before: we sense a Glee episode coming on…

We always knew we didn’t belong in Abercrombie; being accosted by overpowering cologne while dodging deer antlers and shelling out a year’s worth of allowance on a sweatshirt never particularly appealed to us. But then again, we weren’t blonde, lead cheerleader, and built like, well, we usually say “an Abercrombie model”, so we were pretty sure A&F didn’t want our business anyway.

Turns out, we may have been right.

When speaking with Business Insider last week, Robin Lewis, co-author of The New Rules of Retail, claimed that A&F CEO Mike Jeffries “doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people. He doesn’t want his core customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they’re one of the ‘cool kids.’”

So what exactly deems a kid cool enough to earn the privilege of wearing the A&F brand? In a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries 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.”

So who’s automatically excluded from this “cool” group? Girls above a size 10, apparently. Abercrombie doesn’t even list women’s XL or XXL on its size chart. According to Lewis, the only reason Abercrombie offers XL and XXL men’s sizes is likely to appeal to beefy athletes. Read more

Abercrombie & Fitch asked its global male models to pitch in on yet another “Call Me Maybe” lip sync video. Male models in Paris, London, and New York, in B&W. Oh, and without shirts. Everybody buy a t-shirt so we can keep this company in business. And keep them off the talent.

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