American Apparel Ads. | elephant journal

American Apparel now has 10,000 employees, only three of whom have sued founder Dov Charney.

by Waylon Lewis, elephantjournal.com on Sep 23, 2008

This morning a longtime barista buddy of mine asked me if he should avoid printing his cafe’s shirts on American Apparel, “Because of that crazy perv founder dude.” It’s a real concern—the stylish ecoish fashion line may be fair-labor (paying all employees a living wage, not getting their stuff made overseas but rather making it in downtown LA, offering ESL classes and many other benefits) and all, but founder Dov Charney (above) has famously had sex with as many employees as he could get his hands on, it seems; he (in)famously masturbated repeatedly in front of a female reporter for defunct mag JANE, he’s being sued by three (as of last year) former employees, he’s whacko and wild, etc.

But here’s why I print elephant on American Apparel. They were fair-labor, and made in USA, back when that wasn’t cool or popular in the business world. They have been among the pioneers, or at least second wave, of fashion co’s going green (Pata gonia was the first wave). And finally, whacky founder Dov’s always been open about his sexual appetites. Wide open. No shady backroom dealings here. And when all’s said and done, if 99% of the company is 200% better than 90% of other companies, that’s good enough for me in this imperfect world.