My (not so) Dirty Little Secret

I have a confession...I still shop at Abercrombie and Fitch.

Yes. It is true.

The same woman who stands before you toting around luxury leathers and worshipping leggings with a triple digit price tag, STILL shops at A&F.

Abercrombie and Fitch was once the brand of choice for all of the "cool" kids. Their reign lasted many years and was embodied by obnoxiously loud techno music, the classic (yet, aggressive) scent of men and walls plastered with washboard abs. It is also worth mentioning that If you were lucky and went to the store on the right day you'd even get to take a picture (GASP!) with an objectified shirtless "employee". Yippee.

I rediscovered the brand sometime after college. You can access my local mall by walking through the store. What was usually a hurried speed-walk past the midriff bearing, barely legal employees turned into a slow sloth like saunter as I was accosted by the amount of black that donned the racks. I was in shock - the store had never sold black items before (one of my main gripes, even in my youth). Prior to this moment, the darkest color the brand stocked was a navy/midnight blue. Now, there was black clothing everywhere. My heaven.

I started examining these items and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of each piece. The sweaters were thick and cut nicely. The basic tees and tanks were soft and hung beautifully on the body. The tacky moose and giant logos, which donned every garment possible, have been replaced with a small silver bar (easy to remove) or eradicated completely. Thus making your choices more about the actual item and less about the brand - the way it SHOULD be...

For the past few years I've been periodically checking their website for sales (per usual...) and I've walked away with some great finds. Definitely wait until the store has a sale, which is quite often, before purchasing. Routinely the site does 40% off the entire store - so keep your eyes open and your bookmarks intact.

Some of my favorite finds are: basics (tees and tanks), sweaters (no logo), and button downs (perfect worn-in fit).

While I prefer to purchase items in either black or white - I've included a few varied colors because, believe it or not, the white and black choices were SOLD OUT on the site.