Abercrombie's Shuts Its Doors

Need some new falconry equipment? An indoor treadmill to exercise your dog? An explorer's chain-mail suit guaranteed to deflect poisonous arrows? For 85 years, the place to go would have been Manhattan's Abercrombie & Fitch, supplier to princes and Presidents, and the self-styled "greatest sporting-goods store in the world." Alas, no longer: last week the company saddled with debts totaling nearly $8 million, gave up a 15-month struggle to reorganize under the bankruptcy laws and went into liquidation.

Following its founding in 1892 by a lawyer named Ezra Fitch and a sportsman named David Abercrombie, A & F made its name catering to the outdoor elite. It outfitted Theodore Roosevelt's African safaris and Admiral Richard Byrd's expedition to Antarctica, and counted among other famous customers Flyer Charles Lindbergh, Fisherman Herbert Hoover, Golfer Woodrow Wilson and aground Sportsman Ernest Hemingway. Yet, while it eventually expanded into a chain with branches in nine cities, A & F never adapted to modern-style retailing or to a younger, more budget-conscious generation of activists who preferred to buy from department stores and discounters.

From its peak in 1969, when sales totaled $28 million, the firm slid deeper into trouble until its creditors forced it into reorganization. Only last week did the big flagship Manhattan store attract the kind of crowds it had needed to survive. Thousands flocked to its doors, some to hunt bargains in the terminal close-out sale, others just to be there before lights in the paneled rooms went out for good. As the incongruously jaunty sales ads put it, "Well, Ezra, all good things must come to an end!"

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