retrosexism, two months later

American Apparel was the first recipient of an ire-driven post on this blog, way, waaaaaaaaaay back in May. And thanks to page B1/4 of Saturday's Gazette, I get to do it all over again. Dov Charney, dubbed the "Hugh Hefner" of the fashion industry, is the man behind AA, and he was just slapped with a pair of sexual harassment lawsuits South of the border. Tsk, tsk. Once touted the Westmount boy who made good as "Mr. No Logo" - one of Charney's employees now claims "He's having his own sexual revolution and he's not ashamed about it." That 'revolution,' it seems, requires a few tweaks on the part of his female...um, "comrades": not wearing bras or plucking her eyebrows. You know, keeping it "all natural" for the struggle. According to the Gazette's Mike King,

Charney said there are no strict rules, but rather recommendations that "regulate some of the aesthetics of what is worn in the stores. We're selling beauty and natural beauty."

Since employees wear American Apparel products to work, he wants to make sure the clothes look good to potential customers.

"We don't want them wearing underwire bras under our T-shirts," Charney said. "It's not meant to be abusive - we've never fired anyone over it."

And how's this for a little irony. AA has even posted an article about the harassment charge on their website, under "a showcase of recent and archived press articles, ads and web sites featuring American Apparel." If you don't want to read the whole thing, here are a coupla snippets:

Porn Stars In My Underwear
There's sexy advertising, and then there's hiring hot porn starlets to sell tube socks
- SF Gate, Mark Morford, June 24, 2005

Oh, I know, it's all horrible and exploitative and demeaning and softcore pornographic and stuff.
[...]
To which we can only say: God bless them. Mostly.
[...]
And can we not love the sweet dichotomy of a company that touts its sweatshop-free humanitarianism and simple brand-free design aesthetic as a major selling point in one breath, while in the next it happily hires multitalented orally gifted gluteally accomplished porn starlets to complement its already quite stunning array of young, nonprofessional models, most of whom are "real" girls and some of whom are even the company's own employees? Natasha! Nour! Xochielt! Oh my. Makes those tired Victoria's Secret catalogs look like your dad's 1982 Playboys.
[...]
American Apparel. It was founded and is run by a talented and sexually nutty and increasingly notorious, mutton-chopped, '70s-happy 36-year-old dude named Dov Charney, one of the more unique and controversial and libidinously open CEOs in all of corporate America, unafraid and unabashed and just a little greasy.

And Dov, well, he happily indulges in consensual sexual relationships with members of his staff, and he uses tons of raunchy language in the workplace and posts old shots from Penthouse magazine up in his stores to complement the racy retro hipster club-kid design aesthetic, all despite a slew of sexual-harassment lawsuits now winging his way, fast.

Charney takes many of the company's beautifully racy ad photos himself. He encourages a sexually open workplace atmosphere. He works not at all to hide his predilections, and most people claim he has never done anything that hasn't been fully consensual, out in the open. And, according to this BusinessWeek article, he pays his largely Latino factory workers nearly twice the minimum wage, and gives them health insurance, subsidized lunches and paid time off to take English classes on the premises.

To which you're like, no way! Companies still do that? In this corrupt, greedy, outsourced, BushCo-ravaged age? An age when even all-American icon Levi's are now made in foreign factories? And American Apparel can still make a profit? Why, yes. And a quite large one, at that. Amazing, is what it is.

There are, of course, problems. Charney is, apparently, in trouble with harassment lawsuits, with complaints, all surrounding his unorthodox approach, his attitude, his propensity to masturbate, like, all the time...

OK, ok - you get the picture. And if you're anything like me, you grrr'd at the wink, wink, nudge, nudge overtones of both the ideology and practice underlying it - and how seriously those charges of harassment are truly being taken. Good to see AA's rallying behind their big bossman.

Again, and it must be said again - retrosexism is a whopper of an ism when the mythological era it supports is deemed cheesy.

Now there is a word of wisdom from Majikthise (a recommended blog found via google that's worth a look):

Obviously, we shouldn't prejudge the case against Charney. He deserves his day in court like everyone else. However, as [...] other bloggers noted over the past few weeks, multiple convergent reports suggest the CEO of American Apparel as a sexual peonage system. Mark Moford has a maximally charitable account here. Feministing and her commenters take a harder look here.

But I have to admit that I smiled a little smile reading about the charges; as petty as that may be. And I have to agree with the small, home-grown, ground-up, trying-to-make-a-difference and organizations who actually-have-ethicsANDpolitics and who have tried to negotiate a capitalist framework (often using AA's products as posterboards for their own logos) who have decided to look somewhere else for their hoodies, t-shirts and underwear. Perhaps neighborhoodies will be a better choice?