Free Iran

After the contraversy surrounding the 'Legalize Gay. . . Repeal Prop 8 Now!" t-shirts (resulting in staff receiving death threats and vandalism on stores), American Apparel have upped-the-ante again with their next political statement.

The retail giant supplied a UCLA rally for Iranian democracy with "Free Iran" T-shirts on Saturday. A spokesperson for the company stated:

"American Apparel is a company that supports liberty and open-minded thinking. [We have] a history of putting our money where our mouth is. We have some resources and assets that your average protester doesn't and we want to use those when we can." 

The return of the scrunchie?

Surely not? I was surfing the net when I noticed an advertisement for American Apparel scrunchies! After further investigation on the AA website, it looks like the company is putting a lot of their weight behind the product, priced at £5 each. (I can't help but think of that Sex and the City episode when Carrie insists no New Yorker in their right mind would ever wear a scrunchie. Right enough, she never mentioned anything about LA.)

AA's Factory Flea Market

American Apparel apparently make 1 million garments a week in their LA factory. So unsurprisingly, they end up with a whole load of "factory rejects". Rather than throw them out, the company has started having annual (cheap) sales of these rejects in their factory headquarter car park. The hype for these events has become pretty unbelievable and thousands queue for hours for the chance to rummage for a AA bargain.

The American Dream.

An amazing insight into the American Apparel ethics: how their clothes are made in L.A. and how controversial CEO Dov Charney started the fastest growing apparel company in American history.

AA's new advertising approach.

American Apparel has always prided itself in using more 'realistic' models in their advertising and not airbrushing their models. Fantastic! So it wasn't overly surprising to find out that they had selected real people to advertise their AA and California Select Vintage clothing lines. 

I already followed Karla's blog so it is great to see her feature in these images - doesn't she look fab? Karla and 2 other girls were chosen due to their highest ratings at Chictopia (a networking site where anyone and everyone can upload images of themselves in their chosen outfits and users vote the best looks).

 

But this isn't the only new approach American Apparel have had to their photography. Featuring real people in their adverts really appeals to their customer and AA has heavily featured sexual innuendo before. However, most recently, they have also introduced some unique, raunchier images of nudity... featuring porn stars!! (one "model" wears thigh-high socks alone.) 

The ads (idea of Dov Charney - the company's contraversial founder and CEO) were created "exclusively" for more... shall we say "risque" (sex) blogs but of course have given American Apparel massive exposure due to their shock value.