American Apparel: Uniquely LA

For those of you over 35, you might not be aware of the super-popular brand of clothing, American Apparel. In addition to $30 T-shirts, the core of the American Apparel empire, AA now sells all manner of accessories that have become the Hipster Uniform. In fact, my buddy Wikipedia tells me it is the largest clothing manufacturer in the United States. Who knew?

American Apparel gets a lot of press because 1) its marketing materials look like softcore child pornography, 2) its founder is apparently sex-crazed (if you call masturbating during interviews during interviews "crazy"), 3) it takes strong, politically-charged positions, most notably in support of immigration reform, and 4) it has been one of the country's fastest-growing companies in recent years (with funky management practices, like free massages). But mostly, AA is famous because of #1. Let's discuss.

Soft Core Porn
Call me prude and/or old, but AA's ads are really a bit shocking. They usually consist of very skinny, very young-looking people in various stages of undress, spread-eagle in some pastel-colored underwear. AA ads seem to be everywhere; I think I remember reading that they were the biggest advertiser on Facebook at one point [I believe that because I thought they were permanently embedded in the right hand column of my screen, as I frittered away the summer of 2008 on FB.]

The first AA store I ventured into was in LA's Little Tokyo. Upon entering the dressing room, I was greeted by a wall full of creepy, bad-quality polaroids of people who did not look like models, but who did look very sex-starved, wearing bits of AA clothing here and there. I remembered reading somewhere that AA ad photos consisted of photos of AA employees, mostly taken by (or including) Dov Charney, the above-referenced founder of the company. Hello, lawsuit, anyone??

Sparkly Gold Leggings
AA's empire may be built on tshirts, but the clothes they now also feature are nothing short of ridiculous: hotpants, lace body stockings, odd tube tops, weird quasi-leg-warmer socks, gold leggings . . . for toddlers??

The Sun Never Sets on the American Apparel Empire
I was aware of AA because its headquarters occupy one of the largest (the largest?) industrial building complexes in Los Angeles- three massive former Southern Pacific Railway warehouses downtown. But it was not until I left LA that I realized how far the American Apparel empire reached . . . in what has been described as the fastest retail roll-out in history, there are now over 200 AA stores in nearly 20 countries. Apparently what happens in Downtown LA does not stay in Downtown LA, because we were greeted by AA stores in our recent travels to Berlin, Paris, all over NYC. But the craziest one I saw was in boring old Claremont, CA. Claremont? The sleepy little college town of my misspent youth? AA is becoming as ubiquitous as Starbucks or (gasp) Subway?

Why we still love AA
At the end of the day, I am still an AA fan. Theirs are the best overpriced tshirts of all the overpriced tshirts on the market, and come in great colors. Sooooo soft. For now, though, I will skip the lace bodystockings. Or wait until they go on sale at the factory outlet.