In May 2005, dissatisfied with my job as a photo editor at a women’s magazine, I accepted the offer of a casting friend of Bruce Weber to interview for a position as his assistant photographer. At the time, Weber was shooting for Abercrombie & Fitch, working with CEO Mike Jeffries to revive the brand. The photos, in tonally rich black-and-white or vibrant color, showed happy, ridiculously lined, (mostly) white people making out, washing dogs, and generally havalehing. They were reminiscent of ’50s eugenic purity (with a dash of Leni Riefenstahl) – everyone looked like they’d had their hair cut the morning of the shoot. My friend described the assistant photographers as a group of young men who traveled the world with Weber, making a lot of money. During breaks, they showed off by playing shirtless soccer on the beach or jumping off cliffs into ponds. That seemed better than sitting in my office arranging the catering or assuring Missy Elliott’s team that the mansion where we were shooting her actually had air conditioning.
On the day of my interview, I wore a gray sweater, striped oxfords, and APC New Standards. I wanted to look groomed, but not too tight. As requested by the first assistant, I brought a CD of my photos to prove my photography skills. The office was single, with a large round table in the middle and twenty or so people moving around. Weber, a bandana-wearing Santa Claus, wandered around chatting with his employees, followed by a pack of identical golden retrievers. I sat down with Weber’s first assistant, who I’ll call Sean.
Weber was accused of harassing male models while photographing them (putting his fingers in their mouths, etc.) and settled their lawsuits for an undisclosed amount. The charges against Jeffries (and his romantic partner) involve a middleman named James Jacobson, who recruited hundreds of young men for Jeffries and forced them into sexual acts.
Sean told me he had been photographed by Bruce (we kept talking about “Bruce” like he was a fictional character, even though he was standing a few feet away) when he was an NCAA wrestler. He had close-cropped blond hair and the muscle mass of a former athlete (I later found photos of Weber that showed him and his teammates in the locker room happily washing themselves in the showers). His job, as Sean described it, was to hand Weber a continuous line of Pentax 6×7 medium format cameras, which were already loaded with film, focused, and set to the proper exposure so he could shoot continuously. without being late.
We clicked on the CD with my photos and he complimented me on my use of color. As we talked, I looked around the desk at the other assistants, a multitude of different types of doll. Among them was an Ashton Kutcher guy, a Patrick Bateman guy and the American guy who was interviewing me. Wrapping up the interview, he told me they had to take a Polaroid because Bruce “had to be able to connect a face to the name.” I got up and posed for the polaroid, taken with a vintage camera. I knew this moment would be my undoing. I’m under one meter and our family is 99.3 percent Ashkenazi Jews. My type seemed to be missing from the list. I suspected I wasn’t there to fill that void. We shook hands, I entered the elevator and left. After a few phone calls over the next few weeks, things fell apart and I never heard from them again. Sometimes I wonder if they kept those polaroids and if it would be possible to get mine back.
Shortly after my interview, an Abercrombie flagship store opened at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-sixth Street. In addition to the overpowering stench of their Fierce cologne (an “overwhelming blend of sea breeze, sandalwood and musk”) and unpleasant lighting, the Fifth Avenue store was notable for its centerpiece, a mural called The Locker Room ( The locker room). She was drawn by artist Mark Beard, under one of his many aliases, as Bruce Sargeant. (The name Bruce is inexplicably historically associated with homosexuality – for example, when the Incredible Hulk comics were brought to television, the name Bruce Banner was considered too gay and changed to David). The mural depicts an early twentieth-century gymnastics class in a style reminiscent of Thomas Eakins: young men in baggy underwear or briefs, exercising and climbing ropes. Like Weber’s impeccable team of assistants, the romantically captured athletes were ideal manifestations of the hairless and wholesome masculinity that defined his work for A&F. Homoerotic, suggestive, but never clear. You could spot your buddy climbing a rope or playfully pull your friend’s underwear down, all for fun! Photos from the store’s opening show the live version: groups of anonymous shirtless men carrying (blonde, rosy-cheeked) model Heather Lang, kissing her seductively on the cheek.
Bruce Weber in Rome in 2021…GETTY
Those festive days are now over. In July 2023, Abercrombie closed its Fifth Avenue flagship and became Hollister. In the decades between my ill-fated interview and the closing of the store, Abercrombie faced a slew of sexual misconduct scandals involving Weber and Jeffries. Weber was accused of harassing male models while photographing them (putting his fingers in their mouths, etc.) and settled their lawsuits for an undisclosed amount. The charges against Jeffries (and his romantic partner) involve a middleman named James Jacobson, who recruited hundreds of young men for Jeffries and forced them into sexual acts. Much like Epstein indeed― and coincidentally (or not?) Epstein was Les Wexner’s money manager, the man who not only brought Jeffries to A&F but also once owned Victoria’s Secret. Wexner (along with Dov Charney) was the architect of the New American Erectile Dysfunction that sprung up in the 80s and supposedly died with MeToo , Hikikomori Zoomers and the pandemic.
On a recent trip to Midtown with some time to kill, I found myself seeking out the A&F store to see Sargeant’s mural again.
Then I realized that the store had moved and the mural had been taken down in 2018. The new A&F store has a single space, fig trees and bright overhead lighting. The only art is thankless travel photography. I wandered in, looking at a tepid mix of preppy basics, Nirvana kids’ t-shirts for Gen Xers, and a conspicuous lack of A&F logos. The strategy is paying off: the company’s stock is up 300% in 2023, its scandalous past is long gone. And Bruce? He seems to be doing just fine. In a recent Instagram post, she shared a photo of seven golden retrievers, including a new puppy, which, after much deliberation, she named Spirit Bear.
