Posted on by Spencer Cross

Hating American Apparel Is the New Black

Gotta love this post over on Consumerist wherein an anonymous tipster that works at an American Apparel store writes in to say that the notorius LA-based garmet manufacturer must’ve thrown their commitment to socially responsible practice out the window because now they’re *gasp* selling plastic flip-flops that were made in Thailand! Then AA employee Weronika Cwir steps in to put the smackdown on the gossip. If you ask me, assuming that anything made in Asia must’ve been made in a sweatshop smacks of racism, or culturism, some kind of -ism. But, as Weronika points out, everybody loves to bag on AA for something these days. Which is too bad, because I think they could stand to be scrutinized more than they have been in the past. Just not because all of your neighbors in Silverlake are doing it.

Addendum: This probably isn’t enough news to merit another whole post, so I thought I’d add here that American Apparel has also opened a store front in the MMOG Second Life. Seems strange to me, since Second Life sucks and all.

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12 Replies to “Hating American Apparel Is the New Black”

  1. they should be scrutinized for the poor construction quality of their pricey clothes. you’d assume that paying $25 for a plain white t-shirt made by a worker making a livable wage and getting a massage would last more than two washes without falling apart at the seems (quite literally).

  2. More like it smacks of common sense. And this overseas-manufacturer-whose-practices-we-approve-of, just-this-one-product-we-swear thing is a fairly common copout for “socially responsible” companies trying to offshore a little bit at a time without losing their customers.

  3. More like it smacks of common sense.

    How’s that? Because there’s no way a southeast Asian company could possibly run a non-exploitative manufacturing operation? That’s the argument you’re making, and it’s stupid. If you’re going to be contrary, give me something with substance.

  7. Fred Camino, I am sorry your T-shirt fell apart. They’re not all like that. Please fill out the feedback form on our website:

    http://www.americanapparel.net/feedback/

    and we’ll send you a new T-shirt.

    Some research help for all you American Apparel scrutinizers:

    Ben Popken of The Consumerist asked me why I didn’t comment on that resignation letter, and then posted my response:

    http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/top/american-apparel-responds-to-resignation-letter-181364.php

    and Gawker found it newsworthy:

    http://www.gawker.com/news/ann-coulter/remainders-joe-lieberman-shits-in-the-woods-181435.php

    and then I got drawn into the discussion.

    (and why am I doing it again? It’s Wednesday, I should be at Barrigan’s for the cheap margarita happy hour)

    And then we had it with the flip-flop publicity — BTW 500!, thank you for pointing out that the sweatshop assumption is a sign of prejudice — and told the retail kids to give them away, and The Consumerist took that as an opportunity to take a little personal jab at Iris:

    http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/top/american-apparel-flipflops%2C-flapped-182192.php

    It reminds of me of highschool! (In a bad way.)

    For real scrutiny and insight, come to our factory downtown. Seriously. Want to visit? E-mail me at [email protected]

  8. No sweat, Weronika. Even though you’ve demoted me in rank by one order of magnitude, I’m always glad to help root out stupid assumptions. ;)

  9. Too bad the “blogsphere” didn’t really “break” this story. I just read about the Thailand flip flops in NEWSWEEK last night (it arrived a day late, but that is another story). There is a whole article about AA in there.

    Let’s face it blogs are 85% complaining 5% hearsay and 10% interesting. Not that I don’t read them all.

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