Sometimes 'Hot' Is in the Job Description

Outrage over retail hiring practices is 'overblown'
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 4, 2010 1:55 PM CDT
Sometimes 'Hot' Is in the Job Description
A sign hangs above an American Apparel store in the Wicker Park neighborhood September 4, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois.   (Getty Images)

American Apparel and Abercrombie & Fitch have come under fire lately for, apparently, employing only hot people. “Wait—you want people who look good in your clothes to sell them? Oh, the injustice! All the plain people will have to work at Radio Shack!” gasps Mary Elizabeth Williams on Salon. “There are a million reasons to not patronize the likes of American Apparel,” but, she concludes, this particular policy is not one.

Yes, “the staff of a store is there to make the merchandise look good,” and contempt over that is “self-righteously naïve,” she continues. “Selling anything isn't just about being able to pull a size 9 from the back. It's about being able to make somebody think, ‘I never thought about how cute that would look belted.’ It's about making them want to go to the bar where beautiful people pour them drinks. It's peddling the fantasy that given the right socks, you too could be that person/have that person.”
(More American Apparel stories.)

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