"I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch..."

My mom always shakes her head whenever the Abercrombie and Fitch clothing brand comes up. She reminds me of how uncool they once were, back when they were selling fishing and hunting clothes to bearded men. Its marketing department somehow (well, with very revealing photos) totally revamped the company's image and it seems to be headed toward eternal trendiness in the teenage/young adult crowd.

Even though there aren't any A and F stores in Germany, the sheer popularity of the brand name has been imported. When I heard that my friend's daughters were wishing for something from the store, I volunteered to shop for them while I was in California.

A couple of days ago, I presented the girls with a couple of hoodies still saturated with the scent of the men's cologne that fills the store.

They fit! They look cute! It was like "Christmas reloaded," my friend said.

The best part of this experience was that the youngest was apparently sharing the exciting news via text message with her friends. She was having a hard time convincing one boy that it was authentic, since he said very authoritatively that there are only two store locations in the world! Oh, the rumors that surround childhood. I remember a friend informing me that a couple needed to make love 7 times before a baby was made.

Anyway, I was sharing with their father the "mountain man" history of Abercrombie and how it didn't used to be so popular. He reminisced about a time when Jägermeister, the digestif, would never be brought to a party, that people used to agree that it was gross. Now, their marketing campaign is so successful that it's sold in little 100 mL bottles next to gum in the check-out lines at the store, picked up by young and old alike.

And it was my turn to admit to him that I had brought back a few of those newly trendy bottles to the US for stocking stuffers last month. Between these stories and my recent initiation into Mad Men, I'm really taking a second look at the advertising industry.