American Apparel returns after reboot
It has shed much of its earlier image and is taking a more diversified approach to sourcing
American Apparel is back. The brand that spawned myriad copies of its hooded tops with contrasting pull cords in the 2000s before exiting the highstreet after much fanfare and a high-profile bankruptcy in 2016, has become available again online in the UK.
The American retailer has weathered a well-publicised storm over the past three years, which included the departure of founder and CEO Dov Charney and mass redundancies, followed by large-scale protests by its former workers.
Now, after a reboot by its new owners Gildan Activewear Inc, the Canadian-American manufacturers that bought the company for $88 million (Dh323 million) in 2017, the company is aiming to reclaim its title as the go-to retailer for the best basics, says brand marketing director Sabina Weber.
The new team has brought back a lot of American Apparel’s signature products, including the same branding, street-cast campaigns and items such as bodysuits, disco pants and athleisure jersey basics. The highly sexualised image it cultivated in the latter Charney years, however, is not the epoch Weber and her team wants to resurrect.
It wants to revert to its early image of a cool and inclusive label.
“Using real girls, showing diversity and fighting for immigration was being done by American Apparel long before anyone else figured out that there was a commercial value there,” Weber said.
Its first campaign under Gildan still shows American Apparel as a “sexy brand”, says Weber, but an engaging and fun one too, featuring people of all groups and backgrounds.
“It was challenging to come back as a sexy brand and say, “we’re staying sexy”, because there’s nothing wrong with being sexy. It [now] comes from an empowered perspective and you’ll see that in our images and the stories that we tell about people we use. It doesn’t just apply to our women, it applies to our guys too.”
‘Made in USA’ downplayed
One big change is the ‘Made in the USA’ tag. Its commitment to producing all of its collections in downtown LA factories — Charney refused to outsource from the US — defined its former incarnation.
Now, the brand splits manufacturing between its own factories in Central America and Gilden-approved vendors governed by its Genuine Responsibility programme around the world, including Mexico and China.
“Our customer has never really cared about the ‘American’ in American Apparel because it was made in America,” says Silvia Mazzucchelli, vice-president, direct to consumer.
“They’ve always cared about American Apparel because it stands for certain values of authenticity, diversity and ethical manufacturing and we keep all of those values now, even though we are not necessarily made in the US.”