American Apparel: T-Shirts, Sex, and Mixed People too
JT
American Apparel is the Los Angeles based clothing manufacturer well known for its sweatshop free production and colorful product line. You probably also know them for their ultra skinned-out advertisements often depicting women and men wearing the barest of garments, and in awkward poses. To their marketing stratagem of home-style photography, semi-nudity and of course commendable worker treatment, we can now add the glamorizing of mixed people.
AA’s most recent ad campaign features an array of models in the classic head-shot, chest-shot, butt-shot poses we all know and love, and now we get to know a little bit more about these everyday looking people.
Meet Carrie
Chinese/British/Canadian
Scouted by two American Apparel
employees on the street in Vancouver, Carrie will be managing our retail store there.
and
Mike
Czech/Irish/American
A filmmaker and bartender living on the Lower East Side, an employee picked Mike up at local bar Max Fish, and photographed him.
Personally, I’ve been using American Apparel gear for my own t-shirt company, Like Minded People. since I started in 2004 primarily because of AA’s sweat-free labor. And using mixed models is nothing new — I’ve shown mixed folks wearing my stuff since day one, but then again I actually have something to offer to the mixed community other than nakedness. This ad campaign is borderline exploitation, as are most every other instances of calling someone out as being mixed. But American Apparel has always seemed to be a walking paradox of consciousness and lasciviousness.
See one of the ads here.
heidi wrote:
Don’t have a more current update about the situation, but this link is making the rounds about American Apparel workers attempts to unionize in 2003 and the chilly response by their employer:
http://www.behindthelabel.org/infocus.asp?id=84
Posted 14 Feb 2005 at 11:07 am ¶
Millisent Fury Hopkins wrote:
I find this both positive and negative. Yes its exploiting us, but on the other hand its putting us in the spotlight. Accepting us, mixed people can be models and succeed, mixed people are seen as beautiful and OK in someone’s eyes for once, and publically too! Not so sure that is a bad thing…
Posted 16 Aug 2005 at 3:01 pm ¶
BIG Joe wrote:
I have to agree with Hopkins. Besides, corporations having been using mixed people in their ads for years. I think if the t-shirts, greeting cards, and all the other crap is owned by mixed people then good. Let’s get some of our freakin money back.
Posted 17 Sep 2005 at 12:00 am ¶
better versed wrote:
You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the media. the real issue with the union scandal in 2003 was that the union in question mislead the workers. The workers were given the impression that American Apparel wanted them to unionize. The reason American Apparel gave a ‘chilly response’ about their workers unionizing wasn’t because they were necessarily against it, but because of the way the union tricked their workers into it. The workers were told that the company wanted them to unionize, so the workers simply agreed to it. American Apparel is a very progressive company, and the rights given by them to their workers, is part of their success. As far as the models being ‘exploited,’ they choose to be a representation of American Apparel. Sure, some are ‘found’ by American Apparel workers, but i’m sure there’s no gun pointed at them during that time.
Posted 10 Nov 2005 at 3:50 am ¶