They're not quite racists. I'm sure they have a smidgen of diversity within their sales-force ranks. It's hard to describe them as chauvinists since I'm certain that they have a smattering of female executives. And I'm willing to bet that they even have a couple of retailers with crooked noses that are prone to the occasional pimple.

But Abercrombie & Fitch is more than a place where you buy corduroys. You also buy the white sugar-coated Americana image, which they have so kindly packaged into a reader-friendly magazine/catalogue complete with a "parental-consent-suggested" sticker on the cover. You buy into a set of specific social criteria that few people, possibly including yourself, can satisfy. You choose to buy into an organization that chose to carve out its niche in the fashion world by excluding rather than diversifying.

In this university community, whose very greatness is made possible by the intellectual, ethnic and cultural differences of its students, faculty and staff, the philosophy of sameness espoused by Abercrombie & Fitch is an aberration.

But sometimes, I suppose the lure of that fantastic pair of "crippled creek cargo" pants is too much to resist. Go ahead. Buy the pants. And while you're there pick up a copy of the magazine-they-pass-off-as-a-catalogue. Glance at some of the "articles" and you'll see what I mean. Read it in the store, though. Don't pay the six bucks I did.

Christina S. Lewis '02 is a History and Literature concentrator in Leverett House. Her column will appear on alternate Mondays.