Dov Charney is a Classy Businessman
American Apparel founder and CEO Dov Charney is apparently facing a $260 million dollar lawsuit this week alleging that he pressured a former teenage employee to engage in lewd sexual acts with him in order to keep her job at the fashion retailer. It’s gotta be the shocker of the year that the man who markets his business by taking back alley photographs of sex starved teenagers in spread eagle positions while wearing nothing but underwear in order to sell his products would turn out to be a creep. Is it just me, or should the mustache have been the first clue?
Sex scandal aside, they do have some great high waisted shorts.
N.B. The Manolo has asked his friend Trisha Marie to help him from time to time. This is the first of her contributions.
1. I deny the premise — there’s no such thing as great high-waisted shorts. I don’t care what the mavens of fashion say.
2. Following the links to the original article, he is accused not merely of “pressur[ing] her to perform lewd sexual acts.” (Though that would be bad enough.) He is accused of repeatedly raping her and holding her captive. A “sex scandal” is when a politico gets caught having a consensual affair. This is about rape.
3. So you’re not even going to pretend we might want to re-think buying from (and therefore financially benefitting) a guy accused of this heinhous crime?
Good to know. Shoeblogs draws the line at anti-Semitic rants at well-heeled customers of Parisian eateries — as well they should — but when it comes to the repeated sexual assault and rape of a teenaged employee, it’s a general yawn?
Manolo, I read your blog because it is often funny, but I am thisclose to taking it off my reading list for this. Rape minimization is not classy, even when it is in style.
Quelle surprise! I am shocked, I say, shocked that someone that runs such tasteful ads featuring demure ladies could be involved in such an imbroglio!
(Seriously, his mustache is so grody it is practically warning coloration, like an arrow-poison frog, but in this case, it says “I drive a van with an airbrushed wizard on the side.”)
Wait, did you really delete my comment for calling what he’s accused of rape? (Which it is.)
Wow.
The comment was not deleted. It was held for the approval by the spam catching program. The Manolo has released it.
Ah. Thank you. My apologies for jumping to conclusions.
I fully agree with Caia.
There is no “aside”. As much as with Galliano, I can not buy something from someone like this. Now, with Galliano, I can afford maybe a lipstick, but American Apparel is well within my range and since this isn’t the first sexual assault and/or rape lawsuit for Cheney, I haven’t bought anything, no matter how great their products might be.
There are many other T-Shirt sellers out there, probably not all of them disgusting creeps.
Thank you, Banana.
I admit, I do own some American Apparel clothing. I used to think American Apparel was preferable to sweatshop-made t-shirts. Threadless used to print on their products. (They may still, but it’s not so prominently said anymore — backlash?) I won’t throw them out, but I’m not going to be buying any more.
Alternative Apparel is not American-made, but their social responsibility page indicates that they may be a reasonable alternative to American Apparel for the same sorts of clothing.
The extra layer of ick here is that AA has long used ‘ethical employment’ and job creation as a point of differentiation in a business known for employee abuse.
From their website:
“American Apparel leverages art, design and technology to advance the business process, while continuing to pioneer industry standards of social and environmental responsibility in the workplace.”