About 425 customers stood in line yesterday morning in eager anticipation of Abercrombie & Fitch's first store opening here.

The shirtless male models in bright red sweat pants, who have been a fixture along Orchard Road for the past week, stood in their places as the crowds built up.

At 10am, the doors to the apparel brand's flagship store at Knightsbridge opened to welcome its first customers.

The store boasts 20,000 sq ft of floor space which spans over three storeys in the building located next to Paragon.

For the past week leading up to the store's official opening, 40 male models with tight bods were hired to stand in a straight row in front of the building.

They greeted passers-by and also obliged to many requests for photographs between 11am and 5pm daily.

Most of the models hail from Brazil, United States, France, Japan and Italy, but five of them were sourced locally.

According to the brand's spokesman, the 'Shirtless greeters' concept first debuted in Milan in 2009 and have been standard practice for all its flagship stores ever since.

Some customers, however, have expressed unhappiness at how the store handled customers on the opening day

Read more here.

Click on the thumbnails for photos from the opening day on Dec 15.

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