My rant on American Apparel

Over lunch today, I went shopping at the store American Apparel. Now, I already knew I was not a huge fan of the store based on my one prior experience with it. A couple Christmases ago I needed sparkly blue tights. Now, that's not a common thing to sell but a friend of mine told me American Apparel sold funky colored tights year around. Excited, as I lived just around the corner from one, I ran over to check out the selection, saw a beautiful pair of blue, glittery tights, grabbed them, and headed to the register. Silly me, not pausing to look at the price of the tights, but I mean, they were tights! How much could they really be? $35. Plus tax.

So, back to the story at hand, I only went to American Apparel because they went on Groupon and I thought, hey, maybe I'll like them more with a Groupon because they'll be more affordable. Ha. How wrong I was. Here are a list of my main grievances:

1. Things are still ridiculously expensive. It's hipster clothing. Aren't real hipsters suppose to like shopping at Goodwill? Isn't capitalizing on hipsters a slight oxymoron? And it's simple items. How is one piece of fabric, twisted and shaped in some way, amounting to so much money?

2. They plaster their store with "Made In America" signs, yet make their ad campaigns all risque and avant garde (aka child pornography). Then when they get in trouble in America, they point fingers at all the risque ads in Europe and say, "we're not as scandalous as that, why can't America just accept we're pushing the boundaries?" Do hipsters even care about being patriotic anyway? Do they make sparkly American flags? Well, guess what hipsters, American Apparel's CEO is Canadian.

3. The CEO. His name is Dov Charney. He looks like a Chester Molester if I ever saw one (see pic below). He's been the subject of several sexual harassment lawsuits. While none were ever proven, when you make payoffs of $1.3MM to these girls, you don't come off as looking innocent....

4. The sizes. So, this store says nothing about being a store for junior sizes. I'm a size 8-10. I'm a healthy woman. I work out. I enjoy eating food. I have boobs. I fit into nothing under an XL in this store. Can you only be a hipster if you're are skinny?

5. The actual clothes are bizarre. There's a lot of lyrca and spandex. There's a lot of leotards. There's a lot of color patterns that look like they were stolen off a figure skater in 1980. I have yet to see anyone on the streets actually wearing a spandex leotard. There are a couple t-shirt dresses that look normal when they're on the hanger. As soon as you put one of these seemingly normal garment on, they decide to cling to your body in the oddest places.

Mainly, I just feel really bad for anyone who decides to work at American Apparel. They got in big trouble when their employee dress code book was released. There's a funny article on Gawker where AA employees can share their stories, which is quite hilarious to read: http://gawker.com/#!5564171/life-at-american-apparel-the-employees-speak I hear you AA employees, I feel your pain. I worked at Abercrombie & Fitch for two days in college. They told me my red-streaked hair didn't look natural and I'd need to dye it. And I'd need to take out my minuscule nose piercing sparkle. Yet somehow the girls with the oompa loompa orange tans and bleach blond hair looked natural? Needless to say, that was my shortest career. Get out, get out while you can.

Whew, this rant has tuckered me out. I'm going to go eat a cookie and have a glass of wine. And think about how wonderful it is that I don't actually fit into American Apparel clothing. Thank god.