American Apparel

For this task i chosen this image because I’m more familiar with the brand and interested to dig deeper in terms of their ethical problems and what happens insight the business. When I google images this brand there’re a lot of images of their advertising posters which also including the image on the top came up along with lots of other ones which is i think far more worse. So that got me thinking of what is their target customers and audiences, American Apparel is a American clothing brands founded in 1989 by Canadian Dov Charney began by selling high- quality T-shirts to screen printers and boutiques in 1990 under the American Haeavy label, the brand had been around for quite a long time they got many retails store all around the world the brand are really well known for their making the 80s style knees high socks popular again.

Their Ethical issues is mostly about thier advertisements which are known as provocative and controversial, which are largely the inspiration of the company CEO Dov Charney, which has been largely critisied but also lauded for their honesty and lack of airbrushing. The company has used pornographics actors and glamour models in some of their advertisements, they’ve been using the sexual themes for magazines which would be eye gazing for many men which have been banned by various advertising authorities and also one of the magazine was banned in the UK. The model that are appear in the ads posters are mostly teenage looking which are age around 16-19 who appear to look like a child which is promoted sexualised and also pedophile which i think are not very thoughtful of how the advertise could trigger rape and child abuse without realising. Most of their advertises are featured a women or girl wearing nothing but a pant or with the knees high socks posing in a very inappropriate and raunchy position and some of the body part has often been covered by text of the brand’s name with the relevant description or sometimes the name of the model which to me it would seems like a  pornographic magazine this is where i think that is one of the Ethical issue of the brand the advertise is unnecessary and contradicted with the brand but I could see the point that this could boost sales but i don’t think anyone or a parents would wants their kids to buy the clothes from this brand.

The company have been subject to many public sexual harassment lawsuits and have also been sued by many ex- models for sexual harassment which involved mutual nudes photographs and sexual text. “The company was mired in controversy, but at its heart was a desire to produce clothing that did not harm and exploit the people who made it” – Dazed 16th January 2017 Emma Hope Allwood online article.  After reading the article i felt like that there’re some people out their who love the brand and seen the positive in them which i think that the brand been a little misjudged and harshly critized which i think is fair from what they’ve promoted but the point is that comparing to now a day lots of brands have there own positive and negative views from buyers and critics. “After a highly- publicised bankruptcy filling and attempted restructed, the news broke that American Apparel had been sold to Gildan” – Dazed fashion news 14th January 2017 Emma Hope Allwood. 

References:

1. Image from the presentation

2. Emma Hope Allwood 2017 “American Apparel is Officailly over as we know it” http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/34321/1/american-apparel-is-officially-over-as-we-know-it [06/12/17]

3. Emma Hope Allwood 2017 “why we should regret the end of American Apparel” http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/34330/1/why-we-should-regret-the-end-of-american-apparel-ethical-labour-sweatshop-free [06/12/17]