Targetting by the kilo

For all the Doves of the world, who are on a mission to make women (and men?) feel good about themselves, whatever their shape or size, there are always those who buck the trend.

This week, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, Mike Jeffries, has had quotes he made a few years ago regurgitated throughout the internet along with criticism of the company's sizing policy by retail analysts. Mr "Mutton-dressed-as-lamb" Jeffries states that "candidly, we go after the cool kids...a lot of people don't belong (in our clothes) and they can't belong..." Particularly galling for women is that the sizes for woman stop at L, while men's sizes include XL and XXL, presumably to accommodate all those muscly jocks.

Certainly around here, what Mr Jeffries thinks may already be irrelevant as Hollister seems to be the outfitter of choice for "cool teens." (sic)

But in another story this week, even those muscly rugby players will be penalised for their bulk. Samoa Air have decided to charge people on a sliding scale for flights, based on luggage plus body weight. Probably a sensible idea in theory, given the size of their planes, but not the most intelligent move for anyone with an ounce of emotional intelligence. It's not helped by the preponderance of chunky hunky guys on the website, none of whom look less than 80kg!

The really interesting thing will be to see how long it will take Ryan Air to catch onto this one and whether they'll have the guts to risk sabotage via an army of enraged Vicky Pollards.