Naff US clothing chain Abercrombie & Fitch is under scrutiny after a former employee tells a tribunal about the discrimination she faced due to her prosthetic arm.
Law student Riam Dean, is seeking compensation from the retailer for her experiences under A&F's "oppressive regime".
Dean was born without a left forearm, and has worn a prosthetic limb since she was a baby.
The facts of the case are seemingly simple: Dean alleges that she told her employer about her disability, whereupon they agreed she could wear a cardigan to cover the connection between her prostehtic forearm and upper arm.
However, she was soon told that, because of the cardigan, she was in breach of the companies' "look policy".
Dean contends that the A&F head office suggested she stay in the stockroom "until the winter uniform arrives".
While there has been some dispute over elements of her claim, including allegations that her claim that A&F management had repeatedly asked her to remove her prosthetic arm was false, the central issue of discrimination over her aesthetic incompatibility with the firm's near fascistic obsession with manifestations of physical perfection remains.
A&F's "look policy" states that employees "represent Abercrombie & Fitch with natural, classic American style consistent with the company's brand" and "look great while exhibiting individuality".
Clearly the individuality envisaged by the A&F head office does not extend to the possibility that not everyone - be it staff or consumer - will conform to the sculptured, wholesome, aryan-master-race package that Abercrombie & Fitch purveys to the an image-conscious US and latterly, British teenage market.
I can assure you that this writer is not kept awake at night, flicking through A&F back catalogues, conjuring conspiracies out of the marvellous similiarities between said catalogues and the Hitler Youth's propaganda. However, despite the other complex issued dragged out in the tribunal, the fact remains that A&F's valorisation of aesthetic perfection sets the bar for moral bankruptcy, in the pursuit of corporate profit, and defence of commercial image.
After all, they probably couldn't conceive that a sales assistant with a prosthetic arm would not in fact imperil the management's christmas bonuses. Their social conditioning and orientation towards such a shallow, commercialised market meant that those concerned with profit-strategies couldn't comprehend the fact that in an ordinary world, people are born with disabilities, and it is not acceptable to shun them, or to display callous disrespect for disability-discrimination acts, by employing someone and then taking pains to ensure your customers don't know that, shock, horror, up-market A&F employs somebody with a prosthetic arm.
To be sure, Abercrombie & Fitch aren't the only ones at fault in a fashion industry whose disdain for reality, and creation of an aesthetic dystopia, is documented in daily accounts of rising eating-disorders, objectification of physical appearance etc.
However, if the tribunal takes a firm line against A&F in this case, then that would send a message out to retailers that, no matter the social status of their clientele, no fasion label is above the right to work in a discrimination-free atmosphere, without the physical and psychological detriments of disability being compounded and exploited by image-conscious head-office bureaucrats.
In fact, though the fashion industry could do itself a huge PR boost by changing its attitudes to the disabled workforce, any such attempts would for the foreseeable future be seen as the PR stunt it would inevitably be, rather than a longed-for sea change in attitudes.
Law student Riam Dean, is seeking compensation from the retailer for her experiences under A&F's "oppressive regime".
Dean was born without a left forearm, and has worn a prosthetic limb since she was a baby.
The facts of the case are seemingly simple: Dean alleges that she told her employer about her disability, whereupon they agreed she could wear a cardigan to cover the connection between her prostehtic forearm and upper arm.
However, she was soon told that, because of the cardigan, she was in breach of the companies' "look policy".
Dean contends that the A&F head office suggested she stay in the stockroom "until the winter uniform arrives".
While there has been some dispute over elements of her claim, including allegations that her claim that A&F management had repeatedly asked her to remove her prosthetic arm was false, the central issue of discrimination over her aesthetic incompatibility with the firm's near fascistic obsession with manifestations of physical perfection remains.
A&F's "look policy" states that employees "represent Abercrombie & Fitch with natural, classic American style consistent with the company's brand" and "look great while exhibiting individuality".
Clearly the individuality envisaged by the A&F head office does not extend to the possibility that not everyone - be it staff or consumer - will conform to the sculptured, wholesome, aryan-master-race package that Abercrombie & Fitch purveys to the an image-conscious US and latterly, British teenage market.
I can assure you that this writer is not kept awake at night, flicking through A&F back catalogues, conjuring conspiracies out of the marvellous similiarities between said catalogues and the Hitler Youth's propaganda. However, despite the other complex issued dragged out in the tribunal, the fact remains that A&F's valorisation of aesthetic perfection sets the bar for moral bankruptcy, in the pursuit of corporate profit, and defence of commercial image.
After all, they probably couldn't conceive that a sales assistant with a prosthetic arm would not in fact imperil the management's christmas bonuses. Their social conditioning and orientation towards such a shallow, commercialised market meant that those concerned with profit-strategies couldn't comprehend the fact that in an ordinary world, people are born with disabilities, and it is not acceptable to shun them, or to display callous disrespect for disability-discrimination acts, by employing someone and then taking pains to ensure your customers don't know that, shock, horror, up-market A&F employs somebody with a prosthetic arm.
To be sure, Abercrombie & Fitch aren't the only ones at fault in a fashion industry whose disdain for reality, and creation of an aesthetic dystopia, is documented in daily accounts of rising eating-disorders, objectification of physical appearance etc.
However, if the tribunal takes a firm line against A&F in this case, then that would send a message out to retailers that, no matter the social status of their clientele, no fasion label is above the right to work in a discrimination-free atmosphere, without the physical and psychological detriments of disability being compounded and exploited by image-conscious head-office bureaucrats.
In fact, though the fashion industry could do itself a huge PR boost by changing its attitudes to the disabled workforce, any such attempts would for the foreseeable future be seen as the PR stunt it would inevitably be, rather than a longed-for sea change in attitudes.
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