page_title: American Apparel
section_title: Branding and advertising
hierarchical_section_title: American Apparel / Branding and advertising
caption_attribution_description: English: American Apparel, Briggate, Leeds, West Yorkshire. Taken on the afternoon of Wednesday the 20th of February 2013)
context_page_description: American Apparel Inc. is an online-only retailer and former brick-and-mortar stores operator based in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Canadian businessman Dov Charney in 1989, it was a vertically integrated company that ranked as one of the largest apparel manufacturers and marketers in North America.
  After losing money for six consecutive years, American Apparel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. on October 5, 2015 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California. It was reported that the brand then agreed to a plan with its creditors to convert $200 million of debt into equity, $90 million in debtor financing and $70 million in new capital. The company officially exited bankruptcy after its financial restructuring plan was accepted by the Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and became privately owned by its creditors and bond holders, thus severing ties with all former stockholders as well as ex-CEO and founder Dov Charney. In January 2017, Gildan Activewear purchased American Apparel's intellectual property and other assets for $88 million in a bankruptcy auction after the company filed for bankruptcy a second time in November 2016.
context_section_description: American Apparel designs, creates and prints its own advertisements. The company is known for its provocative and controversial advertising campaigns, which is largely the inspiration of the company CEO Dov Charney. According to Adage, American Apparel's advertising 'telegraphs the brand' from person to person. Their print campaigns are widely considered to be some of the best in the industry. The sexually charged advertising has been criticized, but has also been lauded for honesty and lack of airbrushing.
  According to CEO Dov Charney, the vision for the brand is that of a "heritage brand. It's like liberty, property, pursuit of happiness for every man worldwide. That's my America." In regards to the company's image overseas, advisor Harry Parnass stated that the brand is about aspiration and that they are "selling the American dream."
  American Apparel images often display subjects with their blemishes, imperfections and asymmetrical features highlighted and attached with brief, personal descriptions. Many of the models in American Apparel's advertising are recruited by Charney and his colleagues on the street, or company stores; others are selected after sending their photos directly to the company website.
  The company has also used pornographic actors and glamour models in some of its ads including Lauren Phoenix, Charlotte Stokely, Sasha Grey, Euguenia Diyordiychuk and Faye Reagan. Adult entertainment trade magazine Adult Video News cited the American Apparel website as "one of the finer softcore websites going". Some of the company's other ads, which feature nudity or sexual themes, have been banned by various advertising authorities. In 2009, an American Apparel ad which appeared in VICE Magazine was banned in the UK, because the image "could be seen to sexualise a model who appears to be a child". American Apparel complied with this ruling. American Apparel also came under fire for a 2014 ad for mini-skirts, which featured a model bending over so that her underwear was prominently exposed. In 2013, the company released an ad in which the model lay on a bed with her feet up in the air without wearing pants. The company also released an ad in which a model posed in a series of photos focused on her crotch, in which her face was not seen. The UK Advertising Standards Authority criticized the ad for being "voyeuristic" and "vulnerable".
  For a time, Charney used a branding strategy that spotlighted his treatment of workers, promoting American Apparel's goods as "sweatshop free". In 2014, the company released a controversial ad with a topless model, and the words "Made in Bangladesh" across her chest, in an effort to draw attention to the company's fair labor practices. In 2008, the company took out a series of political ads featuring the corporate logo that called current immigration laws an "apartheid system".
  In 2005, the company was named "Marketer of the Year" at the first-ever LA Fashion Awards. Women's Wear Daily published a survey in April 2007 from Outlaw Consulting, a creative research firm tracking the habits of 21- to 27-year-olds, which ranked American Apparel as the 8th most trusted brand, ahead of such clothing brands as H&M and Levi's.
  In 2007, Imp Kerr created a fake American Apparel ad campaign in New York. The stunt lasted almost a year, until it was revealed that the fake ads were actually Photoshop mockups. American Apparel ran a tribute ad on the back cover of Vice magazine showing a compilation of the fake ads.
  In January 2008, the Intelligence Group, a trend and market research firm, listed American Apparel as their number two Top Trendsetting Brand, behind only Nike. In 2008, The Guardian named American Apparel "Label of the Year".
  From 2009 until 2014, photographers such as Henrik Purienne and David Shama worked on a number of ad campaigns for American Apparel that defined the identity of the brand.
caption: American Apparel branch on Briggate in Leeds.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "SONY DSC", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSLR-A230", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "350", "Image YResolution": "350", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "DSLR-A230 v1.00", "Image DateTime": "2013:02:20 03:53:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2308", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 6, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "1/96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "1/96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "35570", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4552", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:02:20 03:53:44", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:02:20 03:53:44", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "637/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "116/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3872", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2176", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "35322", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "52", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "3926"}