rip the american apparel girl

forever in my thoughts as the backbone the of billionaire brand

on a spring tuesday of last year, i walked into my apartment building and found a familiar package. there were only two notable differences: a boxier font and a location change. in place of helvetica and american, this parcel boasted eurostile and los angeles.

despite being two separate entities, these branding changes were the only real differences between each company — each lived philosophies based on sweatshop-free, made-in-the-usa garments with dov charney as their founder. i have received multiple orders from american apparel, yet i can only recall shopping at los angeles apparel once. and the one time i did was only as an attempt to save myself from spiraling deeper into an identity crisis because i had died with american apparel.

near the end of 2014, alleged misconduct and violations of company policy found dov fired from the company he started in 1989. i imagine you have heard about it all — him masturbating in front of a reporter, him turning his employee into an imprisoned apartment sex slave, him walking around the office in his underwear, and the like.

but before all of this, canadian dov was just a horny libertarian college student infatuated with american culture. he sold t-shirts in his dorm at tufts university before dropping out to pursue his business dreams full-time: producing wholesale somewhere in north carolina with vertical integration. in 1997, he moved to los angeles, inside the famous downtown factory. 6 years later, dov opened the first american apparel retail on sunset blvd in hipster mecca, echo park.

since then, american apparel grew rapidly, with more than 250 stores worldwide and a reported annual revenue of about $630 million at their peak. by 2007, they had become the largest t-shirt manufacturer in america. as superstar fashion critic rachel tashjian writes in the washington post, “american apparel was a proto-disruptor business... its radical idea epitomized millennial hopefulness: simple clothes made domestically at affordable prices, marketed through postfeminist sexual freedom.”

for millennials, the american aughts was an era dripped in what is now referred to as indie sleaze. it was ironic living during the bush era. it was girl power amidst misogynistic raunch culture. it was logo mania fatigue at the dawn of the recession. this was the perfect backdrop for american apparel to flourish. they offered brandless clothing inspired by 70s and 80s fashion, appealing to hipsters’ inclination towards vintage. most items were eroticized basics, versatile enough for a multitude of subcultures while parodying conservatism.

“without its creator at the helm,” kate flannery opens her epilogue in strip tees: a memoir of millennial los angeles, “the company became unmoored and unfocused and found itself in bankruptcy court in 2015 and again a year later. in 2017, major wholesale t-shirt producer gildan activewear stepped in to pick up the pieces. they bought the brand name and then ironically moved the production overseas. the factory was shuttered not long after, and retail stores closed worldwide.”

since dov felt his baby was maliciously stolen from him by a greedy, puritanical board, he decided to try again. in 2016, he created los angeles apparel, an identical twin-like company. in the wise words of hadley freeman for the guardian, “hey, why fix something that only broke because of a few allegations of sexual impropriety?” to rekindle the effect he had on young adult culture, los angeles apparel manufactures the same styles in the same factory with the same workers.

as a continuum of its predecessor, it’s safe to assume that the cult dedication to american apparel would swiftly transfer to los angeles apparel — yet it didn’t. at the time of writing, american apparel has 1.4m instagram followers, while los angeles apparel has 205k; american apparel had more than 250 stores worldwide, while los angeles apparel has a single factory store. in 2021, when infamous indie sleaze entered the cultural conscience, mentions of los angeles apparel weren’t made. however, it would’ve been the precise time for the brand’s rise. mood boards include old american apparel pieces, regardless that the current retail site only carries seven (7) kinda ugly items. los angeles apparel carries the original silhouettes, but as such “trend” reaches a tiresome, overstated discourse, the moment for the brand to pop off is ending.

dov’s identity is part of the reason — especially when living in a post me too world — but it's also because american apparel was so much more than its athleisure-adjacent products and ethical work practices. something los angeles apparel fails to capture.

my older brother introduced me to the store, unknowingly indoctrinating me into the ethos and aesthetics. during my late middle school and early high school years, almost everything i owned came from american apparel. sofia bodysuits in pink, cream, black, and lace. high-waisted denim shorts in both dark and light wash. striped t-shirt romper. off-the-shoulder crop top, white button-down crop top, baby pink crop tank. tennis skirts in plaid, black, and white. i had transformed into a nymphet, wearing mini skirts that barely covered my ass paired with thigh-high tube socks. i remember cars honking at me as i walked home from eighth grade. i remember yelling at my mom for oversexualizing me when i donned those garments. i remember the nicest thing anyone ever said to me was that i looked like i worked at american apparel.

it's not that i dreamt of labor, per se, but i dreamt of being an American Apparel Girl™. to be an American Apparel Girl™ was to be sexy but natural, sexually liberated but barely legal, the girl next door but edgy.

earlier in that previously mentioned memoir, kate writes, “the same girls managing and working in the retail shops were also the same girls back in the headquarters designing the newest styles. and they were also the ones hiring all the new employees and scouting for new locations in cities where the company would be sure to thrive. and so it only made sense that they were also the campaign girls — the models — appearing in all the ads.” kate recalls the moment she was recruited by a future coworker telling her, “we’re more like spokesmodels… we’re the face of the company because we’re the ones running it.”

much of american apparel’s success relies on those girls and the advertisements they reigned in. this isn’t a new revelation —everyone remembers their signature amateur softcore porn photographs. barely-dressed, wide open legs, mid-orgasm faces, and bedroom settings. many of these voyeuristic images, which came to define the brand, garnered headlines and were banned by the advertising standards authority. but they weren’t just selling sex — they were selling a new, classic girl. the classic girl was integral to the brand, prophesied by their original classic girl t-shirt, which was slim-cut and clung to all the right places, unlike the boxy standard at the time.

upon seeing an ad in the factory, kate muses, “i recognized the look right away — the smile of a teenage girl up to no good… there was something so honest about the shots — just a real-life girl going about the business of girlhood, not really modeling. she didn’t even have any makeup on. it was so simple, but it worked. I couldn’t stop looking at her.”

unlike their contemporaries, american apparel didn’t retouch models, and it wasn’t to appeal to the forthcoming pseudo-body-positivity movement. actually, the ethos behind how they portrayed bodies accidentally incorporates a body neutrality thesis as they showcase women with an acceptance of their imperfections. looking at a different ad of her co-worker and friend, kate notes, “in the shot, caralee is arranged into a traditional cheesecake pose — on her back with her legs kicked up high and crossed at the ankles. the bottoms of her feet are blackened with floor grunge. two golden crescents marbled with stretch marks peek from the edge of her hot shorts, and on one is a screaming red blemish. i couldn’t take my eyes off that zit — it’s what made the ad work. it was real and intimate, like a snapshot you’d take with your best girlfriends and hide in an old coffee cam in the back of your closet when you’re practicing the ropes of sexiness, just getting a feel for it.”

along with publishing the folds and blemishes of women’s bodies, american apparel ads displayed a variety of girls before consumers demanded diverse representation. in doing so, they offered their debaucherous lifestyle to everyone. there was even a campaign staring a 62-year-old woman in her underwear. ALTHOUGH! it must be noted, that all models were still conventionally attractive, slim-thick, and light-skinned. it was the 2000s after all and dov had a thing for the racially ambiguous girlies……..! when the ads didn’t feature employees, they then featured dov’s girlfriends and friends until he went even further, casting porn stars sasha grey, lauren phoenix, and faye reagan. this may have just been a business strategy imagined by dov’s libido and contrarian tendencies, but, in doing so, it positioned sex workers as real women and continued showcasing a multifaceted womanhood.

there was also the famous meet so and so campaign, which included the model’s name and a brief bio. besides becoming my own photoshop layout, this structure unflattened and fully fleshed out the girls. they were no longer nameless bodies, selling an elusive image. we got to know the girls as if they were the cooler older sisters we wanted to emulate. as julie zerbo writes in dazed, “american apparel had a very precise identity to uphold: attainable aspiration – those hot, ‘real’ twenty-somethings that appeared in their images could be you.”

i was determined to become Her, so i did what any early teenage girl growing up in los angeles would do. during weekend visits, i begged my dad to drive me 45 minutes up the five freeway to the factory so i could buy rejected items with minimal defects for a lower price. i forced my brother to take me to the store where his friend worked so she could give me her employee discount since we were the same size. i took pictures in the dressing room. i took pictures of the brown city shopping bags. i took a picture with my webcam as i laid in bed wearing a bodysuit for one of their contests. i didn’t win, but american apparel did reblog it…….! (the image eventually made its way to ed tumblr, who added #thinspo). after i uploaded the photo on instagram, the nerdy guy i sat next to in some classes — who was just looking out for me — texted me, what the hell are you posting on instagram? i replied, north posted this while playing games on my phone. not sure why or how she chose it but i'm not complaining!

i was beginning to embody the same smile of a teenage girl up to no good. of course, this was after dov was already out of the company, but an american apparel renaissance was happening online during 2013-2016 thanks to girlies like barbienox, mynamesdiana, and pixiejoanna. 

but to fully understand them, we must first look back to cory kennedy, who the cut declared the internet’s first it girl. she ushered a new online era after arriving on the cobrasnake dot com in 2005, wearing a lacoste tennis dress at a post-hardcore show. of the picture, in a 2007 la times profile, shawn humbler writes “with her doe eyes and her brown hair asunder, it was clear that her childlike face, surrounded by all that l.a.-noir, had its own gravitational pull.” she appeared innocent and authentic, a combination that continues to captivate our youth-obsessed culture. she became the cobrasnake’s muse, intriguing the site’s visitors one image at a time. who was this ordinary minor partying with a-listers galore? people became obsessed, dissecting her outfits and following her blog — even celebrities from lindsay to paris wanted to be her friend. shawn continues, “if it’s hard to characterize, it may be because hers is a dispatch from uncharted cultural waters. never before have media, technology and celebrity collided with adolescence at such warp speed.” thanks to blogs, myspace, and tumblr, the internet became a place for a new iteration of the celebrity — everyday, regular, beautiful people celebrated for their impressive taste and lifestyle. cory was one of them. she had a distinct personal style that appeared both effortless and trendy, proving to have a tight grasp on the culture zeitgeist. she walked so modern-day influencers could run.

enter two such influencers: barbie and diana. they were thicc tumblr girlies in new york, gaining a following for their inclusive modeling careers. however, they weren’t actually fat and still held a desirable hip-to-waist ratio but that’s a story for another time! by day, they were american apparel retail associates, often taking pictures while on the clock and appearing in campaigns — a standard practice for American Apparel Girls™ (kate includes ads from the saturdays where they roller skated in store and the summer days they splashed around in a kiddie pool outside to lure in potential costumers in strip tees). their digital footprint offered an inside look at the store, which demystified and romanticized the job. it was early social media marketing at play — with every new follower they gained from their internet celebrity status, they added another devotee to the brand that kick-started their careers.

on the other hand, joanna was a normal fangirl like the rest of us. she didn’t work at american apparel or modeled for them; she just posted pictures head-to-toe in the clothes. since she was a skinny, white girl with a skinny, white, sleepy boyfriend, she content-farmed him, ushering in a choke me daddy era of tumblr. he’d hold a gun to her head, wrap his hand around her throat, and stick his fingers in her mouth. they’d emphasize how much smaller she was than him — his big hand on her tiny thigh, him carrying her so they both fit in a mirror. goals, goals, goals.

though not officially affiliated with american apparel, it was hard to separate the two. she even posted a quick video fawning over their clothes, unable to decide what to buy. if we wanted to be a waifish, sexy girl down for anything, we just needed her uniform: no bra, tattoo choker, and american apparel. the company eventually noticed and brought the two along for a shoot, a black friday haul, and a skimpy halloween guide. this collaboration demonstrated that anyone could work their way into the company — that the American Apparel Girl™ could be materialized from the outside.

los angeles apparel may be presenting similar girls in similar positions within their ads, but they’re not fully tapping into the influencer-type girl nor offering a compelling persona. it may be because we’re currently oversaturated with influencers, making the digital world feel like a place where everyone is one. or because the seductive adolescent can no longer exist within our ongoing awareness of power dynamics within sexual relationships. either way, it is clear that american apparel may be damned without the twisted, accidental genius dov — but los angeles apparel is completely doomed without the Classic American Apparel Girl™.