Aaron Levine had a pretty good idea he was going to be fired from Abercrombie & Fitch.
Just before his fateful review, Mr. Levine, then the senior vice president for men’s and women’s design, turned to his wife, Nicole, and said his “spidey senses” were tingling.
“I just felt that maybe I was too annoying, I wouldn’t say yes enough to things,” Mr. Levine said. He could see the train leaving the station — Abercrombie, after all, would see its stock rise by more than 800 percent from the start of 2021 — but Mr. Levine had a sense that he was about to be told to hop off.
Indeed, he was let go in mid-2021. His period of unemployment was brief.
In the months and years that followed — all, he assures me, within the bounds of a stringent noncompete clause — Mr. Levine became a behind-the-scenes hand at other mainstream fashion brands like Madewell, Vince and Aimé Leon Dore. He designed fleece jackets for the urbane outdoor outfitter Huckberry and created a boot for Viberg. He was the great Oz behind the curtain directing teams of designers on essential fashion minutiae like which plaids sell best, how slender a suit should be and how many pleats to fold into a pair of pants.
Mr. Levine kept a bit of a low profile during this chapter of his career.
These days, however, he’d like some recognition. After 22 years in the fashion industry, he’s stepping forward with a brand of his own, debuting this week. For the first time, work he designs will bear his name.
