Ezra Fitch wanted his store to have an ambient, outdoor atmosphere. His strategy to expand the company included the creation of a mail-order catalog. In 1909, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. mailed over 50,000 copies of its 456 page catalog worldwide (a staggering and costly amount of publication at that time, each cost a dollar to produce).[16] The catalog featured outdoor clothing, camping gear, articles, and advice columns. The cost of the catalog nearly bankrupted the company, but the catalog proved to be a profitable marketing device. Within the store, the catalog was available to customers for free. By 1910, the company became the first store in New York to supply clothing to women as well as men.[15] In 1913, after moving into Reade Street, which was not a convenient shopping location for women, the store relocated to a more fashionable and easily accessible midtown address near Fifth Avenue at 55/57 West 36th Street, expanding its inventory to include sportswear. In 1917, the store moved again into a twelve-story building at the corner of Madison Avenue and East 45th Street.[1] The store occupied the entire available space (12 stories).
Inside the 1909 catalog.
The Madison Avenue store included many different amenities. The basement roomed a shooting range while on the mezzanine (main floor) and paraphernalia for skiing, archery, skin-diving, and lawn games. The second through fifth floors were reserved for clothing that was suitable for different climate or terrains. On the sixth floor, there was a picture gallery, a bookstore (focused on sporting themes), a watch repair facility and a golf school (fully equipped with a resident professional). The seventh floor included a gun room, stuffed game heads, about hundreds of shot guns and rifles, and a dog and cat kennel.[1] The eighth floor contained fishing, camping, and boating equipments and included a desk that belonged to a fly- and bait-casting instructor who gave lessons at the pool, which was located on the roof. The fishing section of the store alone was stocked with over 48,000 flies and over 18,000 fishing lures.[1]
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. became the first American store to import Mahjong.[17] Ezra Fitch imported the game after a female customer looked for the game that she had played in China. He went to China for the game and translated the instructions into English. Mahjong became a fast selling product, and Abercrombie & Fitch became the epicenter of the Mahjong craze.[16] The company sent emissaries to Chinese villages to buy as many Mahjong sets as possible and eventually sold over 12,000 sets. In 1927, Abercrombie & Fitch outfitted Charles Lindbergh for his historic flight across the Atlantic Ocean.[18] By then, the company began to attract a few prominent figures.[19]
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