One of the first signs of old age is that advertising ceases to make any kind of sense whatsoever. Unless it is something simple and straightforward, such as a washing powder or Marks & Spencer puddings, I find most of it utterly baffling. Clearly, 40-year-old married women with children do not interest most advertisers. I am, in marketing terms at least, obsolete.

This ought to make me feel depressed. In fact, I am delighted. Relieved, even. I am now officially at an age where I cannot be bullied into spending money on stuff I neither need nor can afford in order to conform to a prescribed ideal. I am certainly not likely to be taken in by the sort of advertising that relies on scantily-clad young models selling a dream of physical and sexual perfection.

I am therefore not the most sympathetic of audiences for the grand opening, yesterday morning, of the new Abercrombie & Fitch shop in Burlington Gardens, London W1. For those of you who, like me, thought Abercrombie & Fitch was an upmarket travel agent specialising in posh holidays to India (Abercrombie & Kent, in fact; not the same thing at all), it is not. The best way to describe it is sexy Ralph Lauren — with strong Bruce Weber (if you get my drift) overtones.

There has, as they say, been a bit of “controversy” over this new store opening, mainly because of the company’s shameless and expertly calculated use of good-looking young people to promote the brand. There has been a very visible billboard campaign, featuring a muscle-bound young fellow, photographed from behind showing his bottom cleavage.

For the grand opening, this billboard fantasy has been made flesh — in the shape of David and Peter Sheath, two brothers from Swansea. Their job is to greet A&F’s first shivering customers (it is, of course, snowing outside) and, if they so wish, be photographed with them. They will be wearing nothing (and I mean nothing) but jeans and flip-flops. And welcoming smiles.

There is no question that sex is at the core of this brand. But there is rather more to it than that. Two-thirds of the company’s sales in America are in womenswear; and yet the emphasis is definitely on the male body beautiful.

The Burlington Gardens shop, a venerable old building, has been carefully restored, and retains more than a whiff of the pin-striped surroundings of Savile Row. There is a giant metal statue of a latterday David, only wearing a jock-strap for modesty. The upper reaches of the walls are covered in murals of well-honed young men, partaking in manly activities. They wrestle, they wear breastplates, they loll about languidly on couches. It’s all hopelessly camp – but with an encouraging underlying sense of irony, not something one necessarily associates with Americans.

Meanwhile, on the shop-floor, things are a little straighter. It is more like a pool party. There is loud music, low lighting, lots of pretty boys and girls looking wholesome and happy. This is the sales staff, recruited for their looks and enthusiasm. The boys wear jeans, flip-flops, soft casual shirts draped nonchalantly over well-honed muscles. The girls are in shorts, mini skirts, pretty camis and snug-fitting zip-up hoodies. The hair is tousled, the teeth white, the skin smooth and make-up free. It is sexy, sure — but it is not sleazy.

Neither are David and Peter, our two seminaked Welsh Adonises. Such polite young men, and very game considering the weather. Still, they are used to it, hailing as they do from South Wales. “We run the Mumbles mile every year on our birthdays,” says Peter. “Mum’s coming down from Swansea today to see us,” adds David, proudly.

This shop is not for me. However, if I were 18, I would be down there like a shot. And in a straight choice between letting my daughter shop at Topshop and A&F, I would choose the latter. She might come out a little flushed and giggly, but at least she wouldn’t look tarty.

As to whether it will fly, only time will tell. Paddy Byng, chief executive of Smythson and former global marketing director of Dunhill and Ralph Lauren, says: “You have to admire them for being so focused on their brand. The question is: is there a market for this stuff here? Is the UK customer going to buy into this lifestyle? Despite all his high-end labels, Ralph Lauren’s core business is still casual wear – that would suggest that this is going to appeal. But this location is a bit of a risk: it doesn’t have a high rate of traffic, so they will have to make it a mecca, a destination shop that people will travel to.”

An Abercrombie-in-waiting

Unlike the Sheath brothers, my physique is not far from that of the average, pasty, stooped Great British male — inspired by doner kebabs, not Adonis. So as an incentive to slap down the debit card and snap up some collegiate all-American apparel, being confronted by well-built, topless Welshmen hardly worked for me: I would almost have paid to cover them up.

Many fellow males venturing into the shop yesterday morning seemed to share that mild inadequacy: they clocked the Sheaths, then looked quickly away and marched hastily towards the clothes.

Abercrombie & Fitch is a masculine brand (witness the dark parquet, gentleman’s club aesthetic and display of vintage shotguns by door) but only a third of the clothes it sells are for men. The majority of its consumers are young women who want to buy into the brand of masculinity that Abercrombie has so artfully constructed: wholesome, with preppy, Ivy League prospects and abs so defined you could use them to grate cheese.

Most of yesterday’s shoppers were these women, and they seemed very pleased to meet the Sheaths and buy in to that Abercrombie ideal.

Men will buy the A&F hoodies, polos and shorts too: because even if we don’t really have that six-pack, we can always insinuate by wearing the clothes that somewhere within us there’s an Abercrombie Adonis-in-waiting. LUKE LEITCH

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