Prepsters and surfers aren’t letting a few bed bugs influence their choices in fashion. Revenues at Abercrombie & Fitch and its subsidiary Hollister rose in July, the Times reports, apparently despite bed bug scares at their Manhattan stores at the beginning of that month.
“I’m not buying their clothes anymore,” a shopper told the Daily News in July after the South Street Seaport Abercrombie closed temporarily due to bed bugs.
“You made me waste my money,” a mother scolded her son a couple days earlier, after she learned that the SoHo Hollister where he’d bought t-shirts had shuttered because of the pests. “We are going to Old Navy.”
How’s Old Navy doing? Not too well. Shares of Gap Inc. declined steadily during July.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co., meanwhile, is sitting pretty. Profit at Abercrombie stores rose 10 percent last month, while profit at Hollister stores rose 4 percent.
After a week of pest control, the South Street Seaport Abercrombie re-opened, and shoppers came bounding back. It only took Hollister three days to clean up their act.
