So what happens when the magazine industry finally runs out of advertising dollars? Because even with the automotive bailout, you can be promised a lot less money spent on car commercials in the near future, and that trickles down (or up) to almost every cottage industry in this country, including fashion.
The newest line of thinking for fashion mag execs? If you want to keep the mag, get rid of the fashion…and clothes all together. Thus you get dirty boy Ryan McGinley doing a Tar photo shoot where the models all sport their birthday suits. Because if no one is buying your ad pages, you certainly can't feature their $3,000+ dresses in the spreads, right? Especially because these days, no one is advertising that they trade in couture brand names. So it's either dress the models up in Macy's, or nothing at all.
And come on, you had to see this coming ever since Dov Charney and his non-sweatshop porn clothing made the phrase "less is more" into something you could jack off into.
For those not in the know, American Apparel founder Dov Charney is getting sued for sexual harassment, again, by a female employee. This time though, the blame actually seems to fall on the prosecution, since Nikky Yang is either a sleazy liar, or naive to the point of mental retardation. Why else would she hire ambulance-chasing lawyer Keith Fink to handle her case, when he's already suing Dov for another employees sexual harassment suit? Shit man, let's just make this a class action up in this bitch.
CONTINUED »
The Times has their panties all in a bunch over raunchy men's mags that you can find at newsstands *gasp* not twenty feet away from Court Street's municipal building in Brooklyn. The fwap-mags "specialize in the scantily clad bodies of women of color: King, Smooth, Sweets, AsIs."
So disgraceful! So disrespectful towards women! If it only wasn't for these pesky First Amendment laws. Although hell, most news vendors Yonette Joseph talked to admitted that they didn't get many complaints from their patrons. So…it's a non issue, except it offends those journalists whose job it is to seek out smut and corruption near/at City Hall, and then go off to print it, secure in their First Amendment right.
In other news, how many American Apparel advertisements do you think you can spot on a good day in Carroll Gardens? Because Dov Charney has two locations nearly eight blocks away from each other in that area, and heaven forbid those poor public workers get a glimpse of that pornographic material that passes for billboards these days. Oh, I forgot. American Apparel only uses white and ambiguously ethnic girls for their posters.
Carry on then.
The one question on everybody's lips: Since when has American Apparel founder Dov Charney ever looked so respectable?
Perhaps someone should also ask Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman why she decided to put the notorious playboy/sleazebag who reinvented the Lycra bodysuit on the cover of their November issue when the whole world is collapsing and their magazine could stand to profit off a little coverage (like Financial Times!).
Porny clothier American Apparel is now hawking goods printed with an ethnic design the company calls "Afrika." Perhaps unsurprisingly, AA has not used a single black model to help advertise the new print, despite the fact that it's all over their Web site in dresses, leggings, bras and headbands.
Dov Charney, the founder of American Apparel and centerpiece of endless charges about a sexified work environment, including the five instances that ended up with sexual harassment lawsuits, probably could have chosen anything but the product pictured here to stock at is stores. But rather than release a track jacket in a new color, he opted to begin selling the Hitachi Magic Wand (also available online!). As most Sex and the City viewers will note, personal massagers like this one, often sold at Brookstone or the Sharper Image store (is that even still around?), are less tools for everyday stress relief than instruments for getting off. That Mr. Charney would choose to carry these items in his stores, then, should be of little surprise to on-lookers: He has a history of masturbating in front of others. Re-live that scenario, below. CONTINUED »
• Second-rate Posh Spice impersonator is quickly chastised for "not being frigid enough."
• Amy Winehouse cancels the remainder of her tour because, as she puts it, "I can’t give it my all onstage without my Blake." Either that or someone (i.e. her lawyer) finally warned her about the potential dangers of snorting nose-candy on stage and having the video end up on YouTube.
• Geez, how many random dudes does Sienna Miller have to sleep with before she stops being known as Jude Law's ex?
On average, we pass approximately 2-3 American Apparel stores on any given day. Typically, there's not a customer in sight,*which raises a simple and very obvious question: Exactly who is wearing American Apparel's clothes? Because, despite the fact that AA stores are popping up at an alarming Starbucks-like rate, we have to actually encounter a parade of anorexic tweens dressed in Dov Charney's unique brand of slutty gym clothes.
And then we came across this online advertisement, and we finally understood! American Apparel is for underweight, partially Asian people who have severe astigmatism, and an aversion to wearing shirts.
So simple, Dov! And yet, so deep.
*Not counting the occasional pair of obnoxious I-Banker pedestrians, who inevitably stop, stare at the unwearably skintight sky-blue, lycra mini-dress in the window, until one nudges the other and thoughtfully remarks, "Dude, didn't I see your mom wearing this last night?"
• Funny, we never realized that, in New York, "carrying a 9-mm Magnum is at least something usual." Oh, those crazy (gun-toting) foreign reporters…
• We blame the MTA for screwing us over, not the rain.
• Could it be that American Apparel just became our new favorite store? Nope, wait, turns out they just make boring hoodie sweatshirts, and it was just the gratuitous nudity in their ad campaign distorting our judgment.
• And if the heat, rain, and hordes of walking pedestrians didn't kill Brooklyn residents, maybe this tornado will.
• Oh well, we guess there are worse ways to calm city students than by lining the school halls with chicken blood.
• Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic speech was a "gift," forcing him to realize what he needs to focus on. Like box office returns.
• With the Sex and the City movie supposedly back on track, Kim Cattrall conveniently forgets it was she who put up the roadblocks.
• All the women who want to sue American Apparel's Dov Charney will be happy to know he's got a big corporate backer to pay those out-of-court settlements.
• After Christina Ricci's biggest Internet fan dropped his website devoted to her and PETA named her to its Worst Dressed List because she wore fur, she's denounced her personal connection to the slaughter of our furry friends.
• If this supermodel ain't Naomi Campbell, we need a new list of anger-prone waifs.
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American Apparel has successfully taken over the Village, the Lower East Side, and even Park Slope. It was only a matter of time before Dov Charney took his white-pants-crotch-shots to the Flatiron District. Now the glorious stretch of Fifth Avenue between Union Square and Madison Square Park will be home to Roller Girl outfits and sweatshop free* solid-colored clothing.
And since this will technically be in the New York Observer's neighborhood, the diligent paper decided to do some digging around, and asked store scout/designer Miguel McKelvey, "why the fuck do you need to come here anyways?"
"Every space that was previously something else seems to be turning into high profile retail," Mr. McKelvey said. "There's Espirit down the street, J. Crew and Anthropologie. Any of those stores attract a lot of women. My girlfriend goes to Club Monaco all the time."
Of course she does. Well, and — at least according to these super hip old folks ads — American Apparel seems to be catering a bit more to the Arthur Carter crowd. Though if Michael Calderone starts wearing salmon-colored muscle shirts we might have to consider killing Charney and moving to Idaho.
Sexy American Apparel Goes To Sexy Fifth Avenue [Max Ableson, The Real Esate]
Because that "It Boy" story wasn't douchey enough, we felt the need to bring you six pages of chow-chow on American Apparel guru Dov Charney. The subject is just so perfect for the New York Times magazine.
Forget that Charney's in Los Angeles, yo — he's Jewish, owns an understated hipster clothing line, has been profiled by Alex Kuczynski, advertises on Gawker, and is super controversial.
Dov Charney proudly refers to himself as a "Jewish hustler." But he is quite possibly the most unorthodox Jew in the history of the shmatte business. A complicated, charismatic and occasionally controversial figure — he is currently facing a sexual harassment suit — Charney is so acutely in tune with the cultural moment that he is somehow able to use the plain blank T-shirts that he sells to convey potent messages concerning contemporary sex and politics.
Nothing says current sexual and political culture like plain white sweatshop-free wife beaters made by a guy accused of sexual harassment.
Our favorite Times quote of the day, however, explains what makes American Apparell so freakin' awesome.
In an updated 21st-century way, the American Apparel ideal is Charney's Young Metropolitan Adult, the hottie (male or female) from the 'hood, whom you might see walking down the street, at the local coffee shop or working behind the counter at an American Apparel store.
To which we respond: seriously, what the shit? Since when is Orchard Street "the 'hood?" Just because some fucktard is a hoodie wearing street hipster (and walking down the street) does not make him from the 'hood. Hey, Jaime Wolf, why don't you go ahead and ask 50 Cent the last time he chilled with the Times magazine in his nabe's local Starbucks, or worked behind the counter for an American Apparel store?
Actually, don't. We don't want to be responsible for you getting shot in the head.
And You Thought Abercrombie & Fitch Was Pushing It? [Jaime Wolf, New York Times Magazine]
Earlier: Just Don't Call Them 'It' Boys. Or Gay
Now if Jesse Oxfeld's bar mitzvah video was this entertaining, we so would've skipped Time managing editor Jim Kelly's party to go see it. Alas, we're going to wait for the DVD to show up in American Apparel stores.
Earlier: Watch Jesse Oxfeld dance the hora
