American Apparel is too goddamn expensive.

I remember when American Apparel first started up and they were all up in that “fair wages, fair day’s work” thang. Then the whole thing transitioned into cracked-out seemingly-underage models posing with that pouty, poufy “I just got hit in the face by a brick” look, and seems like people forgot a lot of the labor issues. I hear a lot about how AA is no longer such an industry leader in terms of fair labor practices, and now that I’m looking for reasonably priced tees, I’m quite stymied.

You see, inspired by recent crafty things like Felt Club & Unique LA, I decided to get back to handpainting tees like I did a long-ass time ago. But I need shirts. Shirts I can AFFORD. American Apparel is not affordable–not in any volume, at least. There are these shirts from No Sweat, but they’re still too pricy for me, unless I plan on selling these shirts for a fricken’ mint.

Now, I used to hear about there being one day a week when you could go down to the AA plant on Alameda and root through their slightly-wonky seconds: you know, the color was a little off, or a seam wasn’t perfectly straight. And these were discounted. Dear lazyweb, does that day still exist?

Or are there, somewhere out there, low-cost sweat-free shirts, just waiting for me to discover them?

Halp, Los Angeles! Halp! I ask here because I know there are a lot of other crafty ladies out there who’ve asked the same question, and also because I want sweat-free operations to have a chance to sound off in a public forum if they can offer me a good solution.