hi, you reached the website of some guy who is in deep love with skateboarding but pissed off by its industry.

August 22, 2006 2:02 pm

[ american apparel, facts and fiction ]

it’s always the same in the capitalistic world. at first there is a company with a new idea and industry watchers will rate it commercial suicide. next you have the “i told you so” version if the company fails, or the “we have to react!” version if it suceeds.with american apparel it is no difference. in a time of outsourcing, aa started with their los angeles based textile production, and the industry had a good laugh. the common sense of the time was to produce in third world countries to make more profit with all its unethical consequences. furthermore aa promised sustainable- and sweatshop-free products, until then seen as an uneconomic market. within a few years aa has grown to a multi-million dollar corporation with a rapidly growing market share.now the industry want a piece of the cake, the media want stories, the unions want new members, and the customer want to be confirmed he is still buying the right thing. this resulted in a big media buzz and its hard to get the complete picture. especially dov charney’s odd personality feeds the fire. so what is fact or fiction? i for myself had a hard time researching and finally found this very well done article by knowmore.org with many relevant sources.in the end you have to decide for yourself. personally i don’t care for their ad campains. where is the difference between the aa campain and other fashion ads? fashion ads suck anyway and i started buying aa products even before the stores and campains.aa product quality and variety is still fine, it is still produced in los angeles, in the meantime the average pay for an employee on the sewing floor even rised to $12.50 compared to a few cents in china and there is comparatively much support for the workers. these are still my key points for buying aa. and regarding the sexual harassment stories: there is so many information thrown together without context, it is hard to value. for instance, the jane article excluded the important fact, that the writer had a relationship with charney.so i’m still fine with aa products but will observe the ongoings. meanwhile charney should really think before he act. there are others waiting in line to provide sweatshop-free clothing without sex scandals:

this is posted by: sub-stance

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