Abercrombie and Fitch

A big retailer (in this case, The Gap) starts to sweat that the competition is stealing customers and affecting their bottom line. The competition has new, fresh, innovative product lines and unique marketing. The big retailer says "Let's not take the time to start a line that's new and innovative and unique ourselves. We'll buy this profitable upstart and just let them run it like they have been. We'll save all the research and start-up costs and be running at a profit from the get-go. Our shareholders will love us because of the new revenue stream we've created!" And then they start tinkering with the new subsidiary...because they know so much more about running a great business...and they turn the subsidiary into just another one of their shoddy shops. And then they wonder what happened. They just don't get it. It's just like screenwriters who take an excellent book by an excellent writer (example - Black Dahlia by James Ellroy) and screw it all up with new characters, plot lines that don't work, and inserting their crappy unsold script ideas (which are unsold because they ARE crappy), and an excellent well-told story in the book becomes a mess on-screen.

Actually, Banana Republic started as a mail-order surplus store. I used to get their catalogs full of Italian Army wool pants and Israeli Army knapsacks and stuff like that. Eventually they started making their own military-ish clothing and equipment, and that led to them becoming "Banana Republic Safari & Travel Clothing Co." and they started opening stores. And then they sold out to the Gap and became Gap-ish.

My father used to shop at A&F. They were known for having the highest-end equipment for the "field & stream" sports; I don't think they sold stick-and-ball-sport sporting goods.

There is a very funny dirty limerick about the old Abercrombie and Fitch which I learned as a boy, which I say to myself every time I see a kid in an A&F t-shirt. I am quite sure the Terms & Conditions of Use prevent me from posting it.