Abercrombie & Fitch

Abercrombie & Fitch is an American clothing retailer founded in Manhattan on June 4, 1892, by David T. Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch, and now headquartered in New Albany, Ohio. It began as an expensive outfitter for hunters and explorers, spent the 1990s and 2000s as one of the most aggressively marketed youth brands in American malls, and today sells intimates mainly through two lines: the Gilly Hicks brand inside its Hollister stores, and bras, bralettes and activewear under the Abercrombie name.

Tents, rifles and a bankruptcy

For its first eight decades the company had nothing to do with underwear. Abercrombie & Fitch was a sporting goods house, supplying expeditions and wealthy sportsmen from a flagship store in New York. That business did not survive the 1970s. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1976 and closed the flagship in 1977.

Oshman's Sporting Goods bought the name in 1978 for $1.5 million and kept it alive as a catalog and specialty brand. The real reinvention came a decade later, from an unlikely owner.

The Limited years and the Jeffries brand

In 1988 the name was acquired by The Limited, the Ohio retail group built by Leslie Wexner, which also owned Victoria's Secret. That connection explains a good deal of what followed. Wexner's company knew how to turn a heritage name into a mall chain, and it understood how much a sexually charged image could sell.

Mike Jeffries was hired in 1992 and ran the business for 22 years, until he resigned in December 2014. Under him Abercrombie became a "casual luxury" label for teenagers and college students sold with sexualized, provocative advertising. The company was spun off as a public company in 1996, and it built a family of brands: Abercrombie Kids in 1998 and Hollister Co. in 2000.

The Jeffries formula sold logo sweatshirts and distressed denim, but it also prepared the ground for intimates. A retailer whose whole identity rested on bodies and skin was always likely to try underwear.

Gilly Hicks, opened and shut and opened again

The intimates brand arrived on January 21, 2008, when the first Gilly Hicks store opened at the Natick Mall in Massachusetts. It was aimed at young women and sold underwear and loungewear.

It did not last long as a standalone chain. On November 6, 2013, the parent company announced that it would close the Gilly Hicks stores and keep the brand online only.

The revival came in 2017, and it was driven, according to the company's later account, by customer demand from younger women. Gilly Hicks returned as a shop within Hollister stores and online. Pop-ups and new stores followed in July 2019 at malls including Tysons Corner, Dolphin Mall, Los Cerritos and Baybrook, with permanent shops at Ala Moana in Honolulu and Roosevelt Field in New York, and a side-by-side store at Aventura in October 2019. The brand reached London with a Westfield London store in July 2021 and a Carnaby Street shop in February 2022, which later closed, with the product moving into nearby Hollister stores.

What Gilly Hicks sells now

The modern line mixes women's activewear with lingerie and undergarments, a comfort-first assortment in which the soft bralette matters more than the structured push-up. It competes most directly with Aerie, American Eagle's intimates brand, which chased the same customer through the same malls.

Intimates under the Abercrombie name

The main Abercrombie brand sells sleepwear and loungewear, and its activewear line, YPB, carries sports bras and leggings in proprietary fabrics the company calls sculptLUX, studioFLEX and motionTEK. The site also groups a "Bra-Free" collection, pieces designed to be worn without a separate bra, next to the sleepwear.

The company changed leadership in February 2017, when Fran Horowitz became chief executive. The accounts have grown since. For fiscal 2025 the group reported revenue of about $5.3 billion and net income of about $507 million.

The arc is unusual for a lingerie encyclopedia. A company that once sold expedition tents now makes some of its steadiest money from soft bras and lounge sets sold to young women in a sister chain, and the intimates brand it closed in 2013 is one of the reasons why.

Last updated October 7, 2026