[ME]Going for the Look

There are many different ways to promote clothes, such as hiring models to wear them in order to capture customers’ eye ball. Although the outlook of sales clerks is not as important as the models, the retailers still chose the sales clerks base on the outlook because they see those clerks as “a walking billboard,” mentioned by Marshal Cohen, a senior industry analyst with the NPD Group. I agree with Cohen’s analysis since those “walking billboard” got my attention indeed.

As a teenage girl, I admit that I loved the giant poster with pretty models that hangs all over the shop, and that always capture my attention. A cloth will look better on a person with beautiful outlook than the others. Although the cloth may not fit me, at least I want to go inside of the store and try it and other clothes. If the product doesn’t look good on the model, I won’t even waste my time to walk in the store. The environment in the store would become one of the factors that influence me to buy the cloth or not. It feels good when I walk into any upscale boutique and see salespeople who look like they walked off the fashion pages. For guys, attractive women could really be a reason for them to purchase. Some of my male friends will enter a shop only because it has hot girls as sales clerks. They love to hang out in a store that has many young and beautiful girls. That gains the opportunity for them to find some clothes that fit and buy them. Therefore, those retailers are smart and have the power to hire the people they think could represent their brands.

There is an example provide in the article “Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination” written by Steven Greenhouse. A high school senior from Orland Park, a Chicago suburb, named Matthew Sheehey said, “If you see an attractive person working in the store wearing Abercrombie clothes, it makes you want to wear it, too.” We can view him as a representative of normal American teenager. Teenager is one of the major markets of stores like Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, and Forever 21. Teenagers love to follow the latest fad and wish to become as hot as the stars or the models. Advertisement plays a big role in teenager’s mind. Teenagers would buy fashion magazines and keep updating themselves. At this time, the poster would come into their mine and build up the image of the store. If the model is not attractive enough, the will to shop at this store will be overtaken by others. Some of the teenagers may not built up their own closing style yet; when they see the attractive people working in the store wearing even the normal clothes, they may just imitating those salespeople because they want to be as attractive as those sales clerks.

Some people consider hiring attractive people rather than others as discrimination. That's not racism, that's capitalism. Larry Elder, a talk show host said, “this is about a business deciding pursuant to its own best interests, rightly or wrongly, that a particular kind of salesperson is more likely to generate more dollars … It's all about the bottom line.” Business is as fierce as a war. For sure the employers try to make as much profit as possible. Every retailer wants to show customers their best image; therefore they would find the good looking person to perform their products. Or else they would lose at the beginning. Also, normal looking and people from other race do get hired by the retailer, but just doing a different job. Cal State student Carla Grubb says she was increasingly uncomfortable in the Abercrombie store she worked in: “When I did get scheduled, I would have to come in at closing time and wash the front windows and vacuum and wipe off mannequins. While I was washing windows and vacuuming and dusting, my coworkers, my white coworkers, were folding the clothes, which I wanted to do, selling the clothes, which I wanted to do.” It is not that Abercrombie does not hire other race people; they provide different jobs for them. A store needs to have people for different position to keep it work regularly. Furthermore, under both California and federal law, it is legal to consider physical appearance when making employment decisions. There is not thing wrong when retailers seek out workers whose look they feel will sell clothes.

In conclusion, Marshal Cohen’s analysis is correct, and it is totally understandable that retailers only hire the most suitable people for their products. In today’s competitive society, the retailers need to be stand out enough in order to capture the consumers’ attention. Hiring people that can best represent the brand is not illegal and discrimination.