After last week’s rather vulgar post, I decided I was going to class it up a bit this time around with a thoroughly researched treatise on the socioeconomic ramifications of the identity spectrum created by the fashion industry through the cultural language of style.
Abercrombie & Fitch employee Benjamine Bowers—who I’m assuming is also some sort of French aristocrat due to the otherwise superfluous "e" at the end of his name—was busy folding racist T-shirts at work one day, when an A&F casting director approached him with the number of a photographer. With visions of a lucrative modeling career dancing in his head, Bene flew down to Mississippi for some test shots. You know, as one does. Once there, the photographer goaded him into dropping trou and pleasuring himself in order to achieve the “relaxed” look that all Abercrombie models have. You know, as one also does. And then the photog also whipped out his dong to compare sizes. You know, as one also, aslo does.
Okay. If our Second-Estate-refugee-cum-chain-retail-employee’s story is true, then the photographer clearly took advantage of Bene, and the A&F casting director, if not complicit, is definitely an idiot. It's worth nothing that when Terry Richardson faced similar accusations from female models, it was handled as much more of a serious scandal than the tongue in cheek tone of some of this lawsuit’s coverage. But having said that, there were a lot of warning signs that could have prevented this whole thing.
2.) Abercrombie casting directors: See above, and also every A&F Quarterly ever. Shout out to Bruce Weber.
I feel for Benjamine (feel for him, not feel him, relax, dude) and I hope he wins his lawsuit, since A&F seems like a horrible company. But until then, let his story serve as a cautionary tale. If you really want to make it as a model, you don’t have to travel to some far off place and do things like that for a photographer! You just have to sleep with him. And I’m pretty sure you can do that right in your hometown.
Steve Dool is a writer based in New York City. Follow him on Twitter.
