For our latest mission, 111 men of all shapes and sizes shopped shirtless in the Abercrombie and Fitch store on 5th Avenue here in New York. Enjoy the videos first and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.
Digital Video: Agents Shafer, Slocum, Reeves, EMartin, Todd, Lindquist
Digital Photography: Agents Nicholson, Fountain, Scott, Sokoler, Becket
Mission Inspired By: Agent Nguyen
Abercrombie’s hired model
Agent Nguyen came up with the idea for this mission when he noticed the 5th Avenue Abercrombie and Fitch store had a shirtless male model greeting all customers as they enter. Upon further examination, we discovered the model is only one aspect of the store’s celebration of the shirtless male. There are photographs all over the store of bare-chested men, both on the wall and on the products themselves.
There’s even a four-story tall mural of shirtless men working on boats.
To top it all, in the basement of the store, there’s a six-foot tall bronze statue of a shirtless man.
I sent out an email recruiting men willing to take their shirts off in public, and 111 agents showed up to the meeting point in Central Park. Everyone wore jeans and a shirt that would be easy to stuff into a pocket.
I explained to everyone what we’d be doing, and then the shirts came off for a very tasteful Abercrombie-style photo shoot coordinated by Agent Nicholson.
Shirts off!
The men played a giant game of football
Agent Ace$Thugg had the best running game
Some men lounged in the shade
Team huddle
Agent Hurricane Andrew (age 11), center, with football
During our photo shoot, a small crowd gathered to laugh and take their own photos.
After the photo shoot, we regrouped and got organized for the mission. There are four floors in the Abercrombie, so I divided everyone up into four groups by birthday month, to ensure we’d have an even number of men on each floor. Those on the second floor were out of luck, as they’d be shopping on the women’s only floor. I instructed them to claim to be shopping for their girlfriend. I then divided the group up by birthday year and had them enter the store at staggered times, to prevent an obvious line forming at the entrance. At exactly 4:37 everyone was to discreetly remove their shirt on their assigned floor and hide it in their pocket or pants. (We figured that if we had 100 people trying to enter the store shirtless, they’d probably stop letting us in after the first 20 or so slipped by.)
To get the best footage possible in the store, I wore the hidden camera glasses loaned to us by the UCB’s Matt Besser. Agents Nicholson and Shafer helped me connect it to a video camera and hide it away in my backpack.
Around 4:15 we all started heading down to the store. We had 11 people taking photos and video, spread out over the four floors. Five of them were women; we figured they could get away with blatantly filming and taking photographs more easily, especially if they dressed like typical Abercrombie customers.
Our men used a variety of tactics. Agent Shafer had his video camera hiding in a Virgin Megastore bag.
Agent Nicholson had his still camera poking out of a duffle bag, controlled by a wireless remote.
Agent Nicholson’s self-portrait using the wireless remote in his left hand
Agent Fountain went with a more casual approach, simply hanging his camera around his neck and taking photos when no one was looking.
Agent Fountain pretends to shop
Agent CScott was the first to take his shirt off. He thought the go-time was 4:30 and accidentally pulled the trigger 7 minutes early.
Agent CScott
He slowly realized he was the only one and that he must have gotten the time wrong, but decided just to roll with it. Employees didn’t seem to care. In fact, one went and checked on a size for him without even commenting on his bare chest.
At 4:37 the other 110 joined in on the fun. Within seconds everywhere you looked there were shirtless men.
I instructed everyone to simply mill about the store and shop. I told them that if anyone asked questions, to just claim that you’re shopping for a shirt.
Customers and employees very quickly started reacting to us. The majority of them laughed, smiled, and took photos.
A customer laughs
An employee laughs
Customers watch from the stairs
Those employees in management and security were predictably not as amused.
It’s tough to say what the model himself thought of us. He had a variety of reactions over the course of the mission. He was positioned in front of a wall at the entrance, so when the first couple of shirtless guys approached him, he had no knowledge that there were 100 more behind him in the store. He was very aggressive towards these first two agents. It probably didn’t help that the two guys happened to be both taller and more sculpted than he was. “At least I get paid to do this,” he scoffed at them.
He seemed to loosen up later, as he smiled and happily posed for photos with other guys who came by.
The model was happy laugh and joke around with Agent Uncle for a full minute
Back in the store, agents continued shopping, with some trying on items of clothing, looking for a perfect fit.
Agents on the second floor were forced to browse through women’s clothing.
Another interesting thing about Abercrombie is the mannequins. For some reason, almost all of the male mannequins have their jeans pulled down quite a bit below the waist. There’s a bulge poking out of the tops of the jeans, which if you think about it could only anatomically represent the shaft of a penis. Crazy!
Notice the bulge in the background
One agent sat underneath the statue and mimicked its pose.
After about 15 minutes, the Abercrombie management decided it was time to kick us out. Security employees started approaching all of our men and asking them to either put a shirt on or leave. They informed us that the model was a paid employee and his state of undress didn’t justify ours. So despite the fact that the store constantly bombards you with the image of the shirtless male, Abercrombie still maintains a “No Shirts; No Service” policy. Some agents protested that they were trying to buy a shirt, but the staff countered with the not-so-logical, “If you put on a shirt then you can buy a shirt.” Many agents just politely agreed to leave and then walked to another floor to shop some more, getting asked to leave several times before finally heading out.
Two agents were actually stopped while in the process of checking out! They were waiting in line for 10 minutes to buy some $45 shirts, only to be grabbed at the register. One of them was in the process of handing over his credit card as he was nabbed and informed he wasn’t allowed to make a purchase!
Caught in the act of buying!
An agent is asked to leave
The stairs got very crowded as agents started heading towards the exit.
Agent Nguyen, center
Everyone leaving the store at the same time created a whole new scene out on the street as 5th Avenue soon became filled with half-naked men.
Many passing tourists asked if they could get their photo taken with our men.
Others just looked on and laughed.
Everyone had their own theory on what had happened. A British woman told me, “One guy took his shirt off, you know as a rib on the model out front. Then all these other guys saw him and decided to take their shirts off too! One did it, and then they all did!” It was a pretty awesome theory, so I smiled and laughed with her without revealing the truth. Her version of events was much cooler than the truth.
Of course not everyone was as impressed. One guy took a drag off his cigarette and coolly told me, “They’re all just fat asses who are mad because they couldn’t get a job at Abercrombie.” His friends laughed and snapped photos.
Mission Accomplished.
OTHER RESOURCES:
PHOTOS
Agent Nicholson’s Flickr photoset (highlights only) (18 photos)
Agent Nicholson’s Flickr photoset (full) (156 photos)
Agent Fountain’s Flickr photoset (97 photos)
Agent Scott’s Flickr photoset (77 photos)
Agent Sokoler’s Flickr photoset (69 photos)
MERCH
If YOU happen to be without a shirt, why check out some of the brand new Improv Everywhere T-Shirts? We think they’re even cooler than Abercrombie’s fall line!
AGENT REPORTS
Add your own report in the comments if you were there!
great! it’s been a while
Hey there, great job!!! Too bad women couldn’t be included :( The policy at A&F does now definitely seem to be incredibly hypocritical. Congrats on yet another sucessful mission!
Woot 2nd Post
This is what i get for constantly refreshing everyday.
The mission was absolutely amazing. Lots of fun.
Love the Agent interviews
Cheers
-Agent Crunchy
As a female I greatly approve of this mission.
Its nice when you start to see yourself in the pictures and videos after being a fan of the site so long. What a fun mission it was.
:-)
Cool mission — wish I could have participated. And the response gives me another reason not to shop at A&F, as if the corporate racism/lookism wasn’t bad enough.
I can’t believe I forgot about this mission…I’m so disappointed that I missed it.
Was glad to have participated.
Just an afterthought - a mission like this might be better in a warmer month than October - nipples that hard could hurt someone!
I had to pass on this mission because I thought I would be out of town…but now, oh how I wish to have been there!
I would love to be in a mission….just not one involving shirt or lack thereof.
Honestly I wish they included the e-mails with an embarrassment meter just so we know what we’re getting ourselves into. For instance moving is slow motion will get you some attention but its not really embarrassing. Meanwhile listen to an invisible voice is a little embarrassing. Naturally partially undressing in public is significantly more embarrassing -_-.
This was a fun mission, and the first for me. I must say it was challenging to figure out what clothes were mens’ and what were womens’. They’re all so similar there! It was really funny being in the basement though, and all of the sudden in this fluid motion, guys start taking their shirts off one by one, as if a fever was spreading. I didn’t last very long; an employee with a very suspicious angelic voice (the kind that tries to sound nice and fails miserably) asked me to put my shirt back on within a few minutes. Then in the same voice she asked me to leave after I had already put it back on. Either way, it was fun to be a part of it. Looking forward to the next mission!
Awesome mission. It was a joy to participate. Can’t wait for the next one!
That was the hottest thing since sunburn, and Abercrombie and Fitch didn’t eat it up?
The best free public advertising for a company and they acted like typical yuppie scum.
If I had worked there, I would’ve gave out free shirts just for the publicity.
I’d definitly give the security the axe for stopping the show.
One of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time! Great job guys.
Beyond brilliant. This ties the best buy one for my top favorite spot.
Hi Charlie and co.-agents.
Beautiful to see so many different forms, shapes, sizes of men’s chest.
Funny to see how your men also ‘pose’ in front of the camera like models do, wanting to give the best shot for the ladies i suppose.
Thank you,
Karoline,
CPH, Denmark.
Actually, Women can be included, don’t NYC laws permit toplessness by women?
That was so funny!!!!!! I wish I could have been there. I don’t know how I came to your site but I will book mark it. I get a feeling that you will do something even better to top this, although this one was FANTASTIC.
Hysterical. Nicely done.
Abercrombie should train its employees not to commit battery when escorting unwanted guests from the property. Had I been there, I would not have appreciated their hands on my person.
This was very fun! My favorite moment was when we were all in the store, minutes before “take off”, wandering around, seeing tons of men in t-shirts and jeans, and not knowing who was participating and who wasn’t.
I actually spoke with that older woman near the end of the video. She and her husband were walking by while I’m loitering outside. She stops and asks me why we’re all not wearing shirts. I tell her that I have no idea what everyone else is doing and instead that I just saw everyone else doing it and decided to take my own shirt off. Looks like she believed me.
Too funny!
My friend who works at Abercrombie=Coorprate sent this to me. Brilliance, boys!
A lady customer was suprised/aghast when I took my shirt off next to her for no apparent reason. She scoffed, and said to herself outloud “Ok, whateva!” while rolling her eyes. And then she turned around and there were 3 other guys with their shirt off behind her and she said “Oh god, this is so weird.” And then preceeded to walk away with her head down.
Upon being asked to leave by the A&F staff, I informed them I took my shirt off because when I walked in I saw someone with their shirt off and thought it was okay for me to do the same. They informed me that the model in the front worked there and I didn’t. I said “ok, I’ll go shop for a shirt then.” And they let me walk away and shop for about 5 more minutes shirtless.
the last 3rd of the images don’t load for me, just stay red x’s… sheesh, talk about a tease.
p.s. great mission, the AF advertising inspired football shots are particularly awesome.
I took my shirt off in the elevator along with a few other guys. One lady remarked to her husband, “I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
I wondered if maybe they were from Kansas, and thought that this must be what New York is like all the time.
Here’s to IE for working toward that goal.
Congratulations on a wonderful and very funny mission.
I hope the female only mission lets us keep our clothes on. It’s getting cold! Can’t wait.
Me and my wife drove in because my brother lives in NYC, and this was definitely one of the events that we had made sure was in our “weekend itinerary”.
The prank had been something that my brother called me about as soon as he got the email, I guess, which told about the up-coming Improv Everywhere event this past Saturday, and I was immediately in with it. I spent some time the next few days exploring your website and past experiments, and was completely taken back by the creativity and hilarity of the things that the group did! We spent the time thinking about what the new “shirtless” experiment would entail, and each day we were more excited.
Needless to say, although it wasn’t my sole reason for coming out to NYC, it is reason enough to come back!
Great Show Everyone! I love the word ‘predictabley’ when using the management and security words! Headline: ALIEN SHIRTLESS MEN INVADE ABACROMBIE & FITCH CLOTHERIE ACK! How persuasive! How enticing! How certainly safe and endearing! Poor management slobs, “Sorry, you can’t buy a shirt unless you are wearing one” Sheesh! Turning down money in a retail outlet! Was that an executive decision or Corporate?
Imagine: Uh, Hello Corporate, this is the manager of store 47 and uh ,,, heh heh, we got a situation here at store 47! There are literally 50-100 shirtless men here, walking the store! Uh … what should we do? Yes, Shirtless!
“No, they’re not really doing anything except … uh … shopping! Uhh, is that all right? It doesn’t seem normal. What? Ok, I will stop them from making any purchases! Good! Thanks for your Help!”
One big Duh and a big DOH! for management!
Another great idea, beautifully executed and fun all around, prank!
Good JOB! These things always make my day!
Agent Bubster
How hypocritical A&F is!
Never liked he place to start with.
Now I know why!
Idiots. What did you accomplish?
You seemed to have forgotten to explain why you did this.
And it no one in the comments I’ve read seems to know, either!
Imbeciles!
I love all your missions, but this one takes the cake.
Absolutely beautiful. Thanks for another enjoyable mission.
This mission was loads of fun to do.
Wes, the reason we did this is the same reason that any of the Improv Everywhere missions were pulled off. The reason is to brighten other people’s days, and pull of non-offensive pranks. There doesn’t have to be a “point” beyond that.
Employee: “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to either put on a shirt or be escorted out of the store.”
Me: “But… I’m looking for a shirt…”
Employee: “Where is the shirt that you came in?”
Me: “That shirt was awful. Your shirts are way better.”
(Then I walked away and continued to shop in another part of the floor, or on a different floor).
Random Person: “What are you protesting?”
IE Agent: “Shirts.”
Can’t wait for the next mission.
-Agent Slobatch
I am so jealous of Agent Nicholson’s camera lenses!
I wish I had taken better photos indoors. It was challenging. It was also challenging to look like I was “shopping.” How boring are those clothes? Now I see why they need to distract with the sex appeal. A&F is crappy sweatshirts on sexy shelving.
It was fun walking around undercover, watching the guys act casual and listening to employees talk about how the shirtless thing must be “some kind of protest or something.”
Fun mission!
Wes: “You seemed to have forgotten to explain why you did this.”
Dammit, Marcel, why did you bolt a bike wheel to a stool? WHY? If you don’t have a real reason you’re wasting everyone’s time! What did that accomplish?? Imbecile!
I love the idea… it’s as creative as a good ad campaign but not so plastic. Kudos to Agent Nguyen.
Wes: Eat a overpriced commercialized sweatshop-labor produced dick.
So…many…manipples….
lovely, lovely. I love you, IE.
Dudez….you guys rawk!!! This is so awesome.
I can’t believe, in this era of terrorism, that you guys didn’t even consider the well-being of the…. just kidding.
Great mission! Simple and inspired, and 111 guys! Considering the moxie involved on the part of the participants, that is just incredible. My kudos to the bold shirtless men in this prank! That is awesome.
If they hadn’t thrown you out, what was the exit strategy?
join the revolution!
You gave A&F a hell of a lot more publicity than they deserved!
WHy don’t you come and do that at MY store!!??
Oh man, that’s pretty hilarious.
I loved videotaping this mission. Can’t wait for the next one.
The exit strategy was to leave after a half-hour if we didn’t get thrown out. We got about half-way there…
is it gay that i didn’t find this at all gay?
awesome job fellas, im coming in shirtless to work tomorrow.
it seems no one goes out anymore just to give people a laugh. this is excellent, no reason to do it, no reason not to do it.
well done boys!
Hilarious! Well done.
& who knew your agents were so HOT?!
:-)
That scene looked like Splash Bar on a Saturday night!
Brilliant. F***ing brilliant!
If I’d been the manager I’d have called the news channel, not the security guards. You guys weren’t doing anything dangerous or damaging and it would have been great “public interest” story on the local evening news.
I still can’t believe they forced the guys in line buying shirts to leave without making a purchase.
Someone needs to take the corncob(s) out of their ass(es).
Carry on, noble Agents!
Worst mission ever. I’m a huge fan, but this was crap. If you want fresh ideas shoot me an email.
how do i get a hi res of that….i would love a print….the first one that is….or one of the other group shots….would be a great desktop background….thanks…..it’s totally viral….love it
Finally! I thought this place had died on us fans. Once again, an outstanding job improv everywhere!
I’m not prominently featured in any of these photos, but I’m okay with that.
I was a tiny bit apprehensive when I heard what the mission was going to be, but when it was all said and done I found the experience quite liberating. I may never wear a shirt again!
One other thing: As our throng our shirt-free dudes was leaving the store, I heard a middle-aged lady on the street corner say, “They SHOULD leave! None of them has the body for Abercrombie & Fitch!”
Attack of the Show on G4 did a feature on No Shirts tonight. I just saw it. It reruns at 11 PM.
AMAZING LOL!!!! so recent tooo!!! you guys are the best, i’m so glad that i check my e-mail! i really needed a laugh!
G4 AOTS mirrored the video here on their blog- http://www.g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/blog/post/680146/Around_The_Net.html#readmore
Kudos to all the fellows in this one. It took a lot of guts to do that.
This was my first mission and it was absolutely hilarious. It was amazing and I hope to do many more in the future.
It was interesting how some employees were so mad, and others just didn’t care. I personally only got yelled at over and over again
YES!
Way to go, front page of Digg!
Nice, guys. Real nice. ^_^
~Paddy Foran
Um, this is now, by far, my favourite mission. Very good work, gentlemen!
Thats hilarious! nice job
Wonderful! Dissent is a healthy act! Well done.
This was my third IE mission, and as usual, I had a fantastic time. My secret shame is exposed for all on the first video, at 2:53. I was waiting for the elevator when a store employee, under the guise of herding everyone out, decided to put an uninvited hand on my pale, shirtless back. I’m working on it with my therapist, but I’ll definitely be back for the next mission!
What a great way to end my day–with a dozen chuckles and more than five dozen great pics. You should package this set as the first-ever IE trading cards.
Too bad you couldn’t do this in San Francisco or Berkekey, there you would have had lots of very topless women!
Eric
Take that gaybercrombie
I absolutely LOVE you guys for doing this, and I absolutely DETEST A&F!
Like someone said before, they are bunch of racist, ageist, hypocritical, vapid, narcissistic yuppie scum, who make their money from sweatshops! I would’ve made them call the police on my ass and then I would have sued the shit outta them! Stupid discriminating bastards!
Keep up the good work, guys!
P.S. Agent Nguyen is HAWT!
Greetings from Mallorca. Sorry I missed this one. Hysterical! Another classic.
Damn I wish I lived in NYC. You guys had me laughing all day with this. It is so wierd how something like this can literally make the whole day seem fun! MADE MY DAY. THANKS
You made the biggest Belgian paper!
It’s also online on http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelId=DMF19102007_010
I will translate:
“Shopping bare-chested
The sale-persones of the New York shop Abercrombie and Fitch were surprised to see 111 men coming in their shop en taking off there T-shirts. Bare-chested they began to shop.
Behind the stunt was the weblog Improv Everywhere. Abercrombie and Fitch Store advertises mostly with bare-chested men. After fifteen minutes the halfnaked men were put out of the store.”
I’m sorry for any mistakes in my English and congratiolations in conquering the world with your funny stunts and good vision about lightning up the world around you. I wish there were more people who would think like you guys.
you guys are really cool.
Wow, that’s brilliant.
The point? Bah, who needs a defined point or reason when it’s this absurd and beautiful? I love it. Just throws people off, which, in itself, is a great point.
Brilliant.
Love it
Wish I could’ve been there.
Is there any IE type groups that you know of in Montreal? I got a link for this from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s French website.
http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/surLeWeb/index.asp#anchor93254
Great job guys.
Bravo. I can’t believe you survived 15 minutes inside the store. I walk past the store and get a headache from the cologne.
This is brilliant! Hilarious! I laughed out loud at these photos. I work very close to this store and have come to loathe the pathetic scene that one must struggle to walk through on the sidewalk: Bored models chatting with each other as hypnotized camera-crazy tourists linger and stare at them. They even blast the air conditioner for these models (who stand in an open doorway) in the summer, even during the energy crisis we had last year. Oh yeah, and let’s not forget how Abercrombie fired their cleaning staff who were unionized because they “were too expensive.”
Man, I wish I could have been there! That was just great. Why can’t a bunch of sexy, shirtless guys walk around any stores here in Illinois?
Thanks for the laughs!
As usual, a great job. Very funny. Almost as funny was my boss walking up behind me as I’m watching a video of a 100 shirtless dudes.
“What are you watching?”
“Uh, long story.”
Sorry Agent Nguyen,
I think I got you mixed up with someone else. Whoever that is coming out of the store in the first video (at the 3:37 mark, wearing glasses) is the hottie I was talking about.
this was my second mission with IE and it was a pisser! the reactions from confused staff and shoppers was priceless..i had several female employees take my picture with their cell phone cameras, in fact i’m the agent in the video still above, “standing laughing and joking with the model for a full minute”
when they started asking us to leave i kept trying to tell them i needed a shirt, my hanes was just not worthy compared to theirs. after a few times being asked and then told i decided it was time to bail, but not before an impromptu group shot in the lobby! thanks IE for making us laugh and reminding us you can’t always take things too seriously.
woohoo!
I LOVE that kid saying “The prices” when asked if he found anything funny.
zomg
Great job, folks! A&F really lost out on this one. They created a LOT of ill will toward their stores heading into the X-mas shopping season. If it were my company, then the managers on duty that day would no longer be in management. Furthermore, the comment about being rough-housed by security does seem evident in the videos and NYC law was indeed broken. They need to retrain their security staff.
Yum yum yum. Gay Pride, Straight Pride, or just Pride Pride.
Go, Guys.
Great job, I loved it. Wish I could have been a part of it.
Congratulations on a brilliant job well done.
That’s an excellent mission!
I gotta say most IE members are totally hot! I remember thinking when I was reading the set-up that I often find the IE agents attractive, wondering if you’d screen out the hotties. Thanks for letting them all play! Great mission–you guys are teh Bestest!
@ SoulBrotha
You’ve got the right guy (that indeed is me at the 3:37 mark). Thank you for the compliment. If you know any SoulSistahs who might feel the same way, do let me know. :)
@ Agents
That’s the spirit!
@ Improv Everywhere
Thanks for pulling off such a well-organized and coordinated mission. You guys are real pros. And your presentation (the video editing, narrated photo roll, etc.) is perfect.
Lots of smiles and laughs and good memories all around. Thanks!
Ummm, soft gay porn is all I kept thinking.
I really enjoyed seeing my son in the “improv.no shirts”…at least he’s trying to get into the movies…what is NY without “showbiz”?
MOM
I totally am going to write Abercrombie a letter. There is NO WAY that they could kick people out for not wearing shirts when they have featured both MEN & WOMEN shirtless in their ad campaigns. I totally agree that the NYC staff should be fired.
This was amazing and thanks to everyone who took part. I agree - it took guts!http
This is hilarious! I would have loved to have been there.
Any chance you can export some of your agents to the Los Angeles area? Make this a bi-coastal experience!
OMG, this is sooooooooo funny and cool! Where is this Abercrombie? Heck, four levels… i’d die to shop there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Genuinely sexy and funny. Bravo.
hilarious!
absolutely wicked!
I wish I would have been there!
glad to see you guys doing another mission. I have to say that the Best Buy one is still my favorite ;]
Oh. My.
This was one of your better IE stunts! :) You guys are so brave to go around shirtless (in October.. brrr….) in this society of ours. I applaud you. I applaud IE.
What an amazing group of guys! :) Now, if you could just bring a mission to Portland, OR…. :)
It was fun til they brought out the tazers!
The A & F store is like being inside “Man’s Country” in the East Village or Club Thermos in Amsterdam in the 1970’s. No store better resembles a high quality gay bath house of the 1970’s, before Aids, than A & F.
Oh my gosh, I love this. You guys were all very brave. And I wish I could have seen it because it looks so funny. I love that it’s just like something fun to do. Keep it up!