LONDON (Reuters) — US clothes retailer Abercrombie & Fitch brought its half-naked male models to Savile Row yesterday, shocking the discreet tailors to the well-to-do and pleasing teenage girls.Abercrombie & Fitch took its first step outside of North America with bare chests and blaring music courting the controversy that has helped make it a top-selling teenage brand at home.

A spokesman for the clothier, Tom Lennox, confirmed the London opening was the start of a global expansion, with Tokyo expected to be next.

Tailors on “the Row”, for 200 years the clothes makers to English aristocracy, were also keen to give their opinion on the newcomer pumping dance music into the narrow street.

Abercrombie & Fitch’s racy advertising and merchandising — whether billboards featuring Bruce Weber photographs of muscular young men in tight T-shirts or slipping out of their jeans — is a departure for the upmarket shopping district.

Across the road at Ede and Ravenscroft, providers of royal garments for 12 British coronations since 1689, some employees complained the store would spoil the street’s cachet, while others said the $7 billion brand’s arrival was positive.

Company executives hope the mix of edgy image and casual sportswear will build it a niche outside North America that rivals like Gap Inc. have struggled to find.

Retail analysts on both sides of the Atlantic say Abercrombie & Fitch, founded in 1892 and originally a hunting and fishing outfitters, faces mixed fortunes in Europe where homegrown fast fashion giants Zara, owned by Spain’s Inditex, and Swedish H&M dominate the market.

Many of the nearly 200 people, mostly teenagers, queuing in the rain for the 18,000 square feet store were clutching bags from H&M where pop star Madonna’s collection for the chain had just gone on sale.

Christine Chen, a Needham & Co. analyst in San Francisco said Abercrombie & Fitch’s namesake chain was nearing saturation in the United States and success could come from a fast roll out of stores in Europe.

Even so that strategy was high risk.

“One big store could be really successful, but if you overpopulate does it have the same cachet?,” Chen asked.

Sarah Glenister, 18, who had travelled from outside London to the opening, shrugged off paying $60 for a polo shirt and $25 for a T-shirt — double the US retail price — as she carried more than $150 worth of clothes to the cashier.

“There isn’t anything else like this in London. I’ll definitely be back,” she said.