AMERICAN APPAREL PLANS TO ‘KEEP IT REAL’
Company dials down its ‘uncomfortable’ ads as it relaunches in Canada
At best, the old American Apparel advertising was sexy. At worst, it felt downright sleazy.
One quick Google search (beware: it’s a query that’s not exactly safe for work) is a quick reminder that under the guidance of founder Dov Charney, the brand’s ads frequently ventured into a territory that could easily be deemed as going “too far.”
It’s an element of history the team helming the “new” American Apparel had to carefully consider when the now Gildan-owned brand was looking to relaunch last year.
“When we first looked at relaunching the brand, we obviously had to look at the history of the brand and acknowledge that at one point it clearly went too far,” Sabina Weber, American Apparel’s vice-president of brand marketing, said. “Coming, as a woman, into the team, it’s very obvious where it went too far.”
Weber said the group went back into the company ’s archives to understand the full depths of what they were working with, both good and bad.
“We looked at a lot of the campaigns throughout the history of the brand and most of them were great. They were fun, they were irreverent and they were slightly disruptive. Yes, they were sexy, but there is nothing wrong with being sexy — as long as it feels positive and not uncomfortable,” she said.
“People owning their sexuality is actually something we should all be talking about. There’s nothing wrong with being a sexual being. And being empowered in your sexuality is actually something we should all feel confident about.
“But it became very, kind of, uncomfortable at one point. And, when you look at the old images, and we all know which ones I’m referring to, it’s very obvious.”
While the brand’s Los Angelesbased team is willing to look back at the previous regime’s mistakes, they are not willing to return to them. Even if those old ads created a lot of buzz for the brand.
“We are not doing that. We are not that brand. We don’t need that type of publicity,” she said. “So, we decided to strategically keep that feeling of American Apparel, which was fun and inclusive and still a little bit provocative — but not the uncomfortable.”
So how do they strike that balance between provocative but not perverse? Edgy but not exploitative?
“The way to do that is to first acknowledge that a mistake was made, yes, absolutely,” Weber said. “And then not just to say that you’re changing tactics, but to actually do that. So when your actions match your words, you have a truth. So, yes, we’re going to say it. But let’s really do it.”
At its peak, the company operated 280 stores and five factories. Now, its focus is on e-commerce with plans for a bricks-and-mortar retail store to open in Los Angeles next year.
The brand officially relaunched its e-commerce presence in Canada on Nov. 1 with a global campaign for its Fall/Winter 2018 Back to Basics collection shot on location in Vancouver and featuring “real” Canadians posing as models.
The practice of hiring regular people over polished models has long been positioned as an empowering practice for the brand, according to Weber. But these days they “strategically ” cast their models.
“We only hired models who looked older,” she said.
“And, again, we’re only using real people. Every time we do a campaign, and even for our e-comm models, we do it online through an open model — or open people — casting because we literally put it up on Instagram and we say we’re looking for people ages 21 and older, all shapes/sizes welcome, gender irrelevant ...
“And we make sure that the girls don’t look too young. Even if I find a girl who is 21 but she looks 16, I won’t use her. Because it’s just not worth the controversy. I’m like, ‘Come back to me in three years when you look older.’”
For the recent Nudes campaign, a collection focusing on basics in a variety of skin tone-inspired shades, the brand searched only for models aged 30 and older.
While the resulting images are still sexy, they ’re done in a less distasteful way, a feel Weber said is a direct result of the brand taking “responsibility ” for its models and their well-being.
“Having girls who are slightly older makes a big difference because they don’t feel vulnerable,” she said.
“Having girls who are in tune with their bodies, letting them know they’re in a comfortable space surrounded by other women who are comfortable in their bodies, is very empowering.”
Weber said the brand also doesn’t retouch the images, offering instead more realistic versions of the human body — “stretch marks and anomalies” included.
“That’s actually what makes her powerful and beautiful,” she said of the untouched approach.
One thing that remains largely unchanged for the brand since its relaunch, though, are the clothes.
“From a product perspective, we made a very concerted effort to bring back the key pieces that were the most loved. Because we are somewhat of a heritage brand, because there is an iconic nature to American Apparel, because a lot of people grew up with the brand and they all have their favourite pieces,” Weber said.
By the time the new iteration of American Apparel was ready to relaunch in 2017, many of these “favourite pieces” had fallen into disrepair and their owners were ready to replace them.
“When we started to come back in the U.S., it was kind of interesting because we hadn’t launched yet internationally.
“And we would get (direct messages) on Instagram, people sending us pictures of their old, threadbare American Apparel pieces, their underwear, their old T-shirts and old socks,” she said.
Weber recalled a customer who would send a picture of a different decrepit item through direct message almost monthly, prodding and inquiring each time about when American Apparel would return to a global level.
“It was the cutest thing,” she said with a laugh. “And we would get these messages all the time.”
These days, the American Apparel site is stocked with sweaters, hoodies, modal-blend turtlenecks, A-line skirts and more so-called “seasonless” pieces that are marketed as being ethically manufactured and yet come at a lower price point than their predecessors.
The increased affordability is another element of the relaunch Weber is confident will bring prior critics back to the brand.
“I would say to those people that they would be surprised at the quality of the products. That they would be very happy with our new price points because we have been able to reduce some of our prices, which was another thing that people had said in the past that wasn’t so great is that we were expensive for basics,” she said.
“Our pieces may cost more than some of the disposable brands, but you can feel really good about the fact that you’re buying something that is well-made, is going to wash well and that you can feel good about wearing it because you know that it helped pay for health care and took care of the environment.
“We like to keep it real.”