Abercrombie & Fitch adds larger sizes to its women’s collection

After recently announcing the impending closure of all

Gilly Hicks stores world wide and plans to move the label into existing Hollister stores, US brand Abercrombie & Fitch unveiled its newest strategy to attract younger customers back into its stores.

The struggling brand plans to expand its women’s size range for its collection, offer a wider variety of women’s tops in an array of colors and add footwear to its collection in its latest effort to boost failing sales. Abercrombie & Fitch plan to introduce its larger range of apparel by next year spring and bring in the footwear line in time for next year’s back to school season. The latest addition of larger women’s sizes comes as a surprise, as the company’s CEO Mike Jeffries previously sparked a series of arguments when he stated that the brand was designed for the ‘cool’ and ‘attractive’ American teenagers, and not for ‘fat’ or ‘unattractive’ people. The brand currently do not offer women sizes bigger than a large.

The newest additions to Abercrombie & Fitch’s women’s collection comes after the company reported a seventh consecutive quarterly decline in same-store sales this week and shares dropped as much as 13.6 percent to 33.58 dollars, a fifth of their original value. Although the company anticipates profit margins to turn around in the year to come, for now the brand has to rely on in store promotions to get through the holiday season and compete with fast fashion labels like H&M.

During an analyst briefing this week, Leslee Herro, head of planning and allocation at Abercrombie & Fitch said, “We recognize that our businesses have been and will continue to be disrupted by both fast fashion and pure play e-commerce competitors.” She added that the company will invest in expanding its women’s tops collection and introduce new styles, in order to compete with its growing number of rivals. The company also plans on stocking a bigger diversity of current collections in smaller amounts in stores, in similar fashion to the sale model introduced by Zara.

Abercrombie & Fitch executive added that the company aims to raise its selling prices in the middle single digit range next year, as the closing and restructuring of Gilly Hicks will cost the company an estimated 100 million dollars in pre-tax charges, as well as an additional 40 million dollars in impairment costs and 50 million dollars in severance costs and other charges for terminating store leases early.