FASHION Magazine

For the past three weeks, give or take, an insidious promoted ad has taken hold of my Facebook homepage. “We’re back!,” the ads softly proclaim in telltale Helvetica font. Yes, American Apparel, once the only reliable place to purchase implausibly flattering shiny pants and abbreviated crop tops, is back. After years of precipitous decline, in […]

The post Op-ed: American Apparel Recently Relaunched, Here’s Why It Probably Shouldn’t Have appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

It’s time to say goodbye to the retailer that brought disco pants, deep V-necks and  triple stripe tube socks to the masses. It looks like American Apparel, the “Made in USA” brand made famous for their NSFW advertisements and controversial CEO, will soon close its doors for good. It was announced last week that the Bankruptcy Court […]

The post R.I.P. American Apparel: The Rise and Fall of a Generation-Defining Brand appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Oh, the stories I’ve heard about working at American Apparel. The “casting calls” instead of interviews; conference calls from Dov that felt figuratively endless, store visits from Dov that were literal handfuls; the employee discount that was almost always five-fingered; the mirrored table in the staff room that would have made Tony Montana proud. It’s the stories about American Apparel that have always been American Apparel’s most valued currency. The stories proved American Apparel was cool, hot, fun, funny, subversive, edgy, sexy, and if you had a problem with American Apparel then you were none of those things.

A very brief overview: The now 45-year-old Dov Charney founded American Apparel in 1991, a company with a slow burn masquerading as an overnight success. It took twelve years for Charney to move the company from wholesaling in Montreal to a vertically integrated retail empire, and by 2005 the company had produced over $200 million in revenue. Charney quickly became just as noticeable as the stores that were popping up everywhere, famous enough to have Fred Armisen play him on Saturday Night Live.

The stories about Dov Charney’s peculiar proclivities became rumours, and then the rumours became gossip, and then the gossip became fact, an inseparable truth from any other story on American Apparel. As the company grew and grew throughout the first decade of the millennium, Charney became legend, and not necessarily the bad, notorious kind; fawning profiles, like this 2000 one by Malcolm Gladwell, seemed charmed by a man so honestly leading his business by his boners. Business was booming despite—and maybe because of—these stories, so why fix what wasn’t broken?

Never a stranger to controversy, Dov Charney is in the hot seat again after having finally admitted that American Apparel’s long-held “Made in America” practices may not be as steadfast a policy as everyone had thought.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the label’s head honcho was adamant that American Apparel would keep creating its products in California… for now, at least.

Tom Ford’s scandalous just-released Spring 2012 men’s lookbook exposes the designer’s affinity for all things sexual (as if that were a surprise). While Ford’s spring collection is conspicuously absent, there is enough naked flesh to make even Dov Charney blush.

The lookbook features a somewhat sleazy male model (read: he wears sunglasses indoors while striking his best “Blue Steel” pose) and his oiled-up female consort. The lolz-y twosome reads newspapers, showers in tandem and plays a mean game of bottom-pinching (hey, it’s certainly got people talking).

While the clothes are almost entirely secondary, the lookbook does feature silky smoking jackets, robes and other Hugh Hefner–esque pieces. And then there are the boxers (or swim trunks—we can’t tell), worthy of a night at the Playboy mansion.

It’s no secret Ford loves gratuitous nudity—remember his men’s fragrance ads with the artfully placed cologne bottle?—but shouldn’t a lookbook feature just a few more looks? Either way, Ford seems to have a sex-sells formula that works for him. Just check out his eyewear campaign where a crow chomps on Freja’s exposed nipple.

Well, it looks like the future of American Apparel is a little sunnier than previously predicted. After scandal and bankruptcy trailed the company for most of last year, they have recently reported $157.9 million in sales during the fourth quarter of 2011, a 9.7 per cent gain over the same period in 2010.

Never far from controversy, clothing company American Apparel is in the news again after a plus-size-model search gone awry. Recently, they launched a contest to find “booty-ful,” “XLent” girls 18+ “with a little extra wiggle room where it counts” to model their new, larger sizes in basic styles. Nancy Upton, being “super ooged out by American Apparel in the past,” decided to poke a little fun at the company, and sent in pictures that she thought were equally as condescending and mocking as the search itself.

These pictures include Upton in the following scenarios: posing naked, in the position of a pig on a spit, with an apple in her mouth; bathing in ranch dressing; splayed on the kitchen floor, guzzling chocolate syrup; and fully clothed, old Hollywood—glamour style, in a pool, shoving a roasted chicken into her mouth.

Upton won the contest by an overwhelmingly popular vote but received a letter yesterday from creative director of American Apparel Iris Alonso, scolding her for her pictures and her attitude. Alonso, for some reason, also sent her snippy letter to various media sources, essentially giving the press another reason to prey on the company’s practices.

It’s a shame that your project attempts to discredit the positive intentions of our challenge based on your personal distaste for our use of light-hearted language, and that “bootylicous” was too much for you to handle. While we may be a bit TOO inspired by Beyoncé, and do have a tendency to occasionally go pun-crazy, we try not to take ourselves too seriously around here. I wonder if you had taken just a moment to imagine that this campaign could actually be well intentioned, and that my team and I are not out to offend and insult women, would you have still behaved in the same way, mocking the confident and excited participants who put themselves out there?

Turns out that although she won the contest, Upton will not be used to model the clothes, which doesn’t seem like something she wanted to do anyway. After reading extensively on this story we are hungry and exhausted, and even more weary of AA’s business practices.

By Gillian Pryor

After making an unofficial statement on Friday, Balmain has just officially announced that Olivier Rousteing will take over from Christophe Decarnin. Here’s to guessing what the new era of Balmania will look like! [Nymag]

True to form, Tom Ford’s new very-NSFW campaign for his line of Neroli Portofino bath and body products sizzles. [Tom Ford]

Oh dear… American Apparel CEO Dov Charney has found himself in the middle of another sex scandal⎯with some very serious allegations. [Nypost]

By Gillian Pryor American designer, Charles Nolan lost his battle with cancer, passing away this weekend at the age of 53. [Style] Sleeping Beauty has just gone high fashion as Christian Lacroix illustrates Camilla Morton’s inaugural Fairytale Memoir series. [Nowness] It’s crunch time for Dov Charney yet again. Save American Apparel! Please! [WWD] Financially troubled […]

The post Fashion news: RIP Charles Nolan, American Apparel and Gianfranco Ferre’s financial woes appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Alexander Wang has confirmed he will be opening his first New York flagship in Yohji Yamamoto‘s old space. [The Cut]

Look how excited Abbey Lee, Chanel Iman et al are about Fashion’s Night Out. It’s practically all anyone ever talks about. [Vimeo]