American Apparel has made a pretty penny on the backs of its risque marketing campaigns, which feature barely clad “real” models in all sorts of sexy poses and situations. But the British Advertising Standards Authority (BASA) isn’t having any of it, and has warned Dov Charney’s company that they need to tone it down or face censure.
Dov Charney’s hipster skeezbaggery is well-documented. However, a Brooklyn judge has tossed a $260 million lawsuit against the American Apparel CEO — brought by a former worker who said Dovney forced her to become a “sex slave” — and ordered it be settled in arbitration. Irene Morales, 21, said three years ago, when she was a student, Dov locked her inside his Manhattan apartment and kept her there as his personal sex slave, forcing her to perform oral sex for several hours.
Lawyers for Dov Charney paint a different story. They say that Irene Morales pursued Dov, offering sex while trying to get him to give her one of his laptops to use for school, as well as money. His legal team used the two arguments that always come up in these young-girl-accuses-rich-guy-of-sex-abuse scenarios: she’s trying to extort him (money grubbing!) and she had sent explicit photos and messages where she promised sex acts in exchange for goodies (slut!).
Amelia: Eek! American Apparel has dog hoodies now!
Jessica: Amelia, no.
Amelia: What? Lucca gets cold sometimes during the winter and these are only $16!
Jessica: That’s not what I mean. Dov Charney [CEO of American Apparel] is gross and he shows 17-year-old girls his penis! Keep reading »
“It’s getting strange, you know? Things are strange. Like, at our company, we’re all about gay rights–everyone’s sexuality is human. But, there’s still the conservatives, the scared people, just looking for a little enemy, looking for new sexual things to clamp down on. But we don’t want to fall into that trap–only talking about sex–because the larger message gets lost. The problem with me is that my personal sexuality, or whatever, has been used against me, and it’s taken away from our ideas. It’s like a great gay guy had fantastic ideas, it’s 1964 and everybody’s like, ‘Geez, geez, he screws guys in the asshole.’ Yeah, he screws guys in the ass…so what? I like to fool around with girls. Get over it.”
Don’t you just hate when a guy claims to be liberal, progressive, forwarding-thinking, etc. but he’s actually kinda sexist, icky and gross? American Apparel CEO Dov Charney wins the Stop Patting Yourself On The Back, Dude, ‘Cause You’re Actually Not As Liberal As You Think Award. Keep reading »
Here’s a completely revolutionary idea: Work for nightmarish overlords of institutions people are fascinated by, and then put the experience into a book about how it’s actually worse than everyone imagined. American Apparel’s publicist Ryan Holiday is apparently planning to do just this, according to reports that he landed a major book deal with publisher Portfolio, which will allegedly earn him $500,000 or more. However, the New York Observer‘s Emily Witt writes that she got a copy of the proposal from a book editor, which reveals the book is not exactly the kind of tell-all early reports suggest it will be. Read more…
Despite about a million sexual harassment lawsuits and looming bankruptcy, Dov Charney and American Apparel will be able to continue on for a little longer, thanks to a cash infusion. The T-shirt and crop-top company will get anywhere between $15 and $43 million over the next six months. “Dov is an eccentric, and he’s being butchered by investors and the press,” said Roy Sebag of Essentia Equity, one of several lenders who is helping to bail out the company. In the meantime, if you’re not sure about throwing your hard-earned cash at a man who may or may not have requested sexual favors from his female underlings but are in dire need of a new v-neck, check out what LAmade has to offer. [NYPost]
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American Apparel CEO Dov Charney is done with hipsters, but it has nothing to do with his company going down the toilet and nearing bankruptcy. Rather, Charney explains, hipsters are over, stylistically-speaking: “Hipsters are from a certain time period … The stereotype of a hipster is not something people aspire to anymore. Do you want to be a hipster? Nobody wants to be a hipster.” To change things around, Charney, the man who practically invented hipsterdom, is trying to take American Apparel in a preppier direction. But wait … aren’t hipsters all about being ironic? So technically, wouldn’t putting them in pleated skirts and oxford button-ups covertly mock the stodgy structures they rebel against, making them yet more hipster-y? We’re confused. Whatever. [Village Voice] Keep reading »
Wannabe American Apparel employees must have “full body, head-to-toe” photos approved before hiring, according to an investigation by the gossip blog Gawker. Managers send photos to some unknown higher-level employee, where the pics are approved or denied. A source has told Gawker that American Apparel has a new hiring policy where physical attractiveness — under the guise of “personal style” — now takes precedence over retail experience. Keep reading »
