Abercrombie and Fitch today announced that they are going to be closing all of their Ruehl stores by the end of the year.
Ruehl was an attempt by the company to target an older, post-college customer than their younger Abercrombie or Hollister brands. This meant extremely dark, but funky stores, selling extremely similar lines to Abercrombie and Hollister but with a hefty price premium attached. For example a t-shirt marked at perhaps $25 in Hollister would retail for $40 in Ruehl.
Ruehl was always pretty empty when I vistied, but I liked it because it remained the one place I could get that kind of clothing that not many people at home would have. Now Abercrombie and Hollister are across here, I guess I’m just going to have to put up with wearing the same stuff everyone else is wearing.
You can read the investor release here