by Jared Logan, Blerds Fashion Consultant
If you live in a major U.S. City, or maybe even if you don’t, chances are you’ve seen ads for a relatively new company called American Apparel. The ads generally feature a young lady. She is always attractive and she is always sporting the clothing of the American Apparel company. Often she is placed in a, shall we say, compromising position: legs akimbo, back arched, butt out. She may be eyeing the camera innocently as if to say “Who? Little old me?” The photos are grainy, weathered. They have an amateurish look, despite obviously being taken by someone skilled at photography. They have that hipster “found photo” appeal that’s all the rage these days. They also remind one of the type of photo spread you would find in a trashy skin mag like Barely Legal. (Not that I’ve ever seen a magazine like that.)


It helps that a lot of the models are 18 or 19. Some are a little older, but they all look young. You can find their ages listed right there in the ad copy, which always gives you information about the model. “This is Hapinka” the ad might say (the models always have weird names) “an eighteen year old retail employee from our New York store.”
Oh, by the way, a lot of the models are actual employees of American Apparel. This is definitely something I think WalMart should try.


Sometimes the ads give you more unneccessary details, such as the model’s racial background. “This is Kanduk Kim, a Korean/Vietnamese retail employee in our Los Angeles store.” Okay, she’s half Korean and half Vietnamese. Are they promoting Southeast Asian unity here? Or are they trying to titillate us with some hot crazy asian screw pics?
Or both?

It gets better. The founder of the company, Dov Charney, is given the photo credit on a lot of the ads, some of which are taken in the store, some in private apartments. This, to me, is the ultimate American businessman. He founds a company that sells tiny skin-tight clothing, hires hot chicks to work on the retail floor, and then goes around taking pictures of them posing erotically in private apartments. This practice immediately reminds me of medieval Lords who would take the virginity of their most comely subjects on said subject’s wedding night (see Braveheart.) In other words, this Dov Charney guy is a real sleaze-hole. The worst.

And them clothes he sells is skin-tight, baby! My girlfriend and I visited the American Apparel location here in Chicago. You have to be thin to fit into anything in the store. And when I say thin, I don’t mean fit. I don’t mean “in shape.” We’re talking Kate Moss here, Karen Carpenter. Everything seems to be made of lycra or spandex. All of the clothing seems to be designed to accent and draw attention to the human nipple and/or butt crack. Why do they call the place American Apparel? 64% of Americans are overweight or suffer from obesity. I guess the store definitely has that IRONIC hipster appeal.

Everything was over-priced.

Inside the store, prominently displayed on a pedestal, was a book that told “The Story of American Apparel.” This was a blow-by-blow account of the great journey Dov Charney undertook in creating his company. Not surprisingly, the book paints Charney as some sort of guru. And man, it’s dull. I can’t imagine who would want to read this book, save some guy bored out of his mind as he waits for his significant other to try on yet another pair of hotpants that will not and can not possibly fit on her reasonably in-shape female frame. American Apparel is definitely American in one respect: it’s got a big ego. The idea that people would actually want to read “the story” of the store they’re shopping in is a quintessentially wrong-thinking American idea. I can’t believe they would expect me, a consumer, to undertake the reading of a novella (the book had many, many pages) in order to further appreciate their brand identity. “Wow, look at this passage! It says here that American Apparel is trying to merge comfort and sex appeal into a new look that fits my fast-paced, yet easy-going lifestyle!” Stamp a barcode on my forehead, hand me a rifle, and send me off to war.

There were other irritations in the store. Gigantic wall-size photos of young people in various states of disrobe were plastered all over, giving me the impression that I was walking around in a Fiona Apple video. I may want to masturbate while watching Fiona Apple video, but I certainly don’t want to be in one. The people in those videos are assholes.
As the ads might indicate, the employees at this American Apparel store appeared to have been chosen for their youth and appearance rather than their customer service skills. One young retail clerk looked to be about fourteen years old and was draped in a ridiculously complex silk shaw/scarf/halter top combo thing. So she was extremely overdressed in addition to being unhelpful. Instead of a retail clerk, I got the impression that I was bothering a young heiress who had wandered into the store while her chauffeur was outside fixing a flat tire. She began every sentence with “Uh?”

ME: Do you have socks?
HER: Uh? Yeah.
ME: Where can I find them?
HER: Uh? Over there by the California Fleece Zip Hoodies.

The “California Fleece Zip Hoodies.”
So many things were wrong with this place. There’s way too much underwear in the store for a store that does not claim to focus on underwear. It’s really off-putting. I mean, you’re supposed to be in a general clothing store but you keep getting the impression that you’re surrounded by nothing but underwear. The balance was way off in there. It was like 69% underwear, 31% regular clothes. You’re looking around and you keep telling yourself you’ll be in the shirt section of the store soon, but the underwear section just keeps going and going and going…

I guess Dov Charney wants the American populace to walk around wearing nothing but underwear all day long. This would certainly make it easier for him to decide who to hire at his stores. “Excuse me, Sweety. You’ve got a great look. Striking cheekbones. A fine, healthy, robust set of buttocks. Have you ever considered a job in retail?”

Before writing this blog, I did a little research on the company and discovered that the entire company is based in the good ‘ol US of A. The designers, the salespeople, the factory workers, the models, and the retail clerks are all U.S. citizens and all of the clothing is made here, in the United States. The website makes a great deal of this fact. They play up that angle quite a bit. Hell, it’s in the name American Apparel. Check out these paragraphs from Charney’s mission statement:
Ultimately, it is this system that allows us to stay competitive while paying the highest wages in the garment industry. Because we don’t outsource to local or developing-nation sweatshops (or to ad agencies, for that matter) the entire process is time-efficient, and we can respond faster to market demand.We offer the following benefits to all of our employees, sewers and administrators alike, as a matter of policy: paid time off, affordable healthcare for them and their families, company-subsidized lunches, bus passes, free ESL classes, on-site masseurs, free parking, proper lighting and ventilation, and the most up-to-date equipment (be it the latest cutting machine or software). We are continually striving to improve the work environment.

Wow. Company subsidized lunches?? Bus passes?? On-site masseurs?!? (The proper lighting and ventilation is required, Dov, don’t think I’m going to applaud you for that.) Who is taking advantage of the on-site masseur, Dov Charney? You? Can Murray on the factory floor say “Shit, I’m beat. One hell of a day!” and then go get a full body rub-down from Fernando the masseur over in the employee spa?

Maybe he can. If so, I applaud that. And I applaud the fact that you don’t go through sweatshops. That’s great. But most of all I applaud your ingenious marketing strategy. You’re thinking: “If I just play up the fact that we do all our manufacturing here in the states, I can get away with selling over-priced clothes that fit nobody. I can get away with hiring young women solely based on whether or not I’d like to boink them. I can get away with using them as low-price models, photographing them in my basement, dressing them like hookers. I can get away with selling crappy product in my annoying store, and displaying the story of my life on a pedestal in every one of my retail locations. And people won’t just put up with this, they’ll love me for it. They’ll call me a great leader, a humanitarian, a responsible businessman. All because I don’t go over-seas for labor.”

But it doesn’t work that way. Just because you do one great thing doesn’t mean you can go ahead and do twelve other shitty things. If I volunteer with the red cross on Sunday, then sell drugs to school kids on the Monday, I’m still a scumbag.

Yes, your company is truly American, Dov Charney. Just like America, your company thinks its good works balance out its bad deeds.

Such ego! Such hubris! Such crappy lycra hotpants. Nothing says America like an eighteen-your-old in a basement wearing nothing but a thong and a knit tanktop, right Dov? Am I right?
Maybe you could restructure. Maybe you could create affordable clothing for real people and sell it using sex AND class. Maybe you could try being charming instead of sordid.
Naaaaaah! Get your camera. It’s time to exploit the youth of the country you love.

30/08/2006
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