Comments on: american apparel: continuously (controversial) clothier

By: Jocelyne

Jocelyne — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:53:56 +0000

I have been seeing a lot of flyers and posters trying to stop the store they are putting in, or trying to put in on Valencia. The location is alreay listed on thier (AA’s) website. Most people in the Valencia corridor want to keep it small business oriented. It is remarkably stayed that way so far. I wonder what will happen.

By: katie

katie — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:38:13 +0000

EEW! Micro poly short shorts. GROSS! I wouldn’t put those anywhere near my kitty kat.
Loathe the kiddy porn advertising.
Loathe the kiddy sizing. Loathe most of their styles.
I like the non-sweat shop philosophy.
I am willing to pay extra for that.
That said, I don’t buy anything from AA directly.
I own a couple of concert shirts and a hand screen print from an Etsy seller.

By: Alanna

Alanna — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:47:38 +0000

if anything i am impressed by how they have sensationalized the “basics”, which I do think are cut pretty well for their market…
personally I didn’t even notice them until the hyper stylized sexed-up ads showed up everywhere, so I think that is working for them in terms of sales.
but nothing says fast fashion like the shoddy quality of mass production, and I am not so into that.

By: Natalie

Natalie — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:02:10 +0000

If they made plus sized clothing, and changed their attitude towards bodies, I might consider wearing their clothes.

Fortunately, these two things probably won’t change.

By: Young Pop Sophisticate

Young Pop Sophisticate — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:24:13 +0000

Hey Tricia,

You may be interested in the controversy surrounding AA and their displays here in Vancouver:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/01/13/bc-american-apparel-butt.html

By: Maven

Maven — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:29:17 +0000

I don’t own any AA clothes (oops, except this Obama shirt I got for donating to MoveOn), and I doubt I ever will. I agree with much that has been said here about the skeezy AA overlord, the hyper-sexualized images used to sell the stuff (though to be fair, pretty much every product out there does the same thing even when the product has nothing to do with sex), and the unimpressive quality of the clothes. I think they’re pretty much faux-revolutionary. The company is also heavily leveraged, so it’s hard to see why they’re garnering praise for their sales. They’re over $111 million in debt.

Also, this is totally OT but seems like the kind of thing you’d be interested in, if you haven’t seen it already–it’s instructions on how to build your own dress form:
http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/3665/molded-papier-mch-form

By: lindsey clare

lindsey clare — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:38:08 +0000

i think it’s a shame that the CEO acts like such a jerk. i used to be a fan of AA (i have a couple of their tshirts) and i liked the fact that they were sweatshop-free. but i’ve recently reconsidered – mainly because of that Clamor article about their anti-unionism, as well as Charney’s pretty disgusting view of women.

By: ruby

ruby — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:23:15 +0000

oops. that is supposed to say “I’m usually an eight.”

By: ruby

ruby — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:22:12 +0000

I’m a 2nd hand clothing store owner, and when AA was first on the scene about 10 years ago (before they had any stores) I liked them for the made in USA aspect. We bought a line of wholesale ts from them to carry as basics, but they don’t fit real women! You have to be a teenager or very tiny to fit into their medium, and the XL fit me (I’m usually an so I stopped carrying the line. Now that they have gone in the direction of “You have to be HAWT to wear our clothing” I just think it’s another form of exploitation. What’s very sad is that it’s working – teenage girls have come to form their self-image through the lens of skeevy dudes like Charney, and are buying it like crazy. It’s sad.

By: Tess

Tess — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:33:23 +0000

I’m with lorimarsha. I find the controversy interesting, and their clothing pretty boring. Personally, I don’t buy new clothing so my opinion of the ceo/company as a whole doesn’t impact my choice one way or the other. I’m not buying it anyway.

I’m very sex positive and feel that our culture is far too prudish, however the ads are fairly pornographic (those green shorts that nikkole! posted. Can’t we just ASSUME what the crotch seem looks like?)and I doubt the recently-18 yo’s are getting paid was well as a porn star. Although, it does seem that porn stars are modeling for AA ads. Is the economy that bad??? I’m being a bit silly but there are a lot of different lenses to look at this from. And a lot of folks have done that as we can see from the many articles and kudos and recriminations that Tricia has linked to, as well as the articles that those link to an so forth.

Back to the controversy aspect of this whole thing, I often wonder why AA’s antics (good or bad) are so heavily publicized while it seems like few other corporations or fashion labels are scrutinized in any way. I’m sure if we applied this same light to most other popular places that people get clothing from I’m sure we’d uncover a lot of unpleasant truths. A t-shirt from target might be comparable in style and quality to one from AA, and it’s probably less expensive! Though it was probably made overseas by workers who are paid very little and work in questionable factory conditions. There seems to be an AA (or 80) in every hip neighborhood here in Boston (200 give or take worldwide) but there seems to be a very large Target stores in most cities (1683 total stores). As far as homogenization of fashion and flooding the markets with inexpensive disposable goods, Target is probably a much bigger offender, though I’m sure this corporation is much less polarizing than AA, and especially it’s CEO. I don’t think I’ve ever read about Target’s CEO… AA carries and is one slightly controversial brand, while Target carries many brands and labels many of whom test on animals (MM’s? why? plus Johnson and Johnson, Clairol, and many other seemingly innocuous household brands).

I don’t really want to start a comment war about the ethics of corporations and who’s better, I just wanted to provide some food for thought about how and what we consume in general. If you really want to you could convince yourself never to buy anything again, or leave the house. I’m a fan of moderation and information, most folks buys lots of things and don’t know where they came from and how they are made. I’m not proposing we all stop buying new things ever, just more information and discussion so consumers can make educated decisions and maybe, gasp, buy less!

As far as my personal decisions go, I’m probably not going to agree ethically on all levels with everyone in a company. I do look at actions, though, and base my decisions on that ( I avoid companies who animal test for example) but still advocate for LESS LESS LESS!