the district

Porn star come American Apparel Model Faye Reagan aka Jillian. (get it?)

Critics of American Apparel advertising who claim that it is virtual soft-porn have recently gained some fodder for their argument. While this is apparently not new news (file under: I learn interesting things when I talk to my brother) American Apparel has at some point begun featuring porn stars in their print and online advertising efforts.  While this is hardly the venue to discuss the implications of pornography and perpetuating gender inequality, I do think its fair to assume that such a move will not be received warmly by the feminist community at large.  One has to wonder how American Apparel has continued to do so well amongst the specific class of consumers and t-shirt companies wishing to use an ‘ethical’ blank, despite the company’s continued absurd antics towards women.  (At least) 5 sexual harassment cases, pedophile-baiting photography, and now the use of porn stars for models, yet American Apparel continues to dominate as the source for blanks for socially responsible t-shirt companies and consumers.  It don’t make no sense, and those are my two cents.

In a new effort to increase the irreverence and irony of being an American Apparel clad hipster, AA has unveiled shirts with letters on them. Because helvetica is currently ‘cool’ (although even I thought it was passe by now) American Apparel will print the entire alphabet one letter at a time so that you can sport your favorite symbol loud and proud. Now I have written on this topic before, so I will keep it brief, but I am still at a serious loss in trying to understand how a font could have developed a popular following, or even a fan-club. Its so Meta it hurts. If you really want to be uber-cool you can get five of your friends together and each get one of the following letter shirts: d-o-u-c-h-e.

Not I’m not one to generally just pass along coupon codes for the sake of promoting a sale, but I actually really like these designs from INDVSl.  I don’t know much about the outfit, except that by judging from their pictures they are probably in SoCal. Also, they have achieved the nearly  impossible task of having an entire  website in Flash without it being totally obnoxious. Most of the prints are pretty fresh, and I also like that they do some printing on other AA styles like the track jacket and scoop-neck women’s shirt.  While it is nice to see the style variation, one does have to ask, “Who the hell thought it was a good idea to print sleeveless men’s t-shirts?”  Anyway check it out and use coupon code ‘ilovefall’ for 30% 0ff.  Word: http://www.indivisualclothing.com/

So usually I am trying to get Karl at T-critic to write about something that I am doing, so I figured it would be fun to switch it up. As the author of one of the web’s busiest t-shirt blogs, Karl should know a thing or two about good t-shirt design. As he explains it:

The motivation behind doing my own line of shirts stems from the same motivation for writing this blog, to find and promote cool designs that are maybe a bit under the radar. That’s why the one of my lines is going to be called the Artist Series which will be based upon original licensed art and design from indie artists. The artist gets a cut of every sale for as long as we are printing the shirt.

The shirts are printed on American Apparel, with no word when the next one will come along.  While ordinarily I might say that it the Obama shirt is a little overdone right now, the novelty of Obama’s head on a pez dispenser overrules that concern. Plus, really he could use all the attention he can get right now. Check it out.

By this point in the game, there are a lot of Obama shirts out there, which in my mind is a net-positive despite relatively few noteworthy designs.  However, the fact that the Democratic nominee is inspiring people to want to make t-shirts at all should be taken as a pretty good indicator of the left’s interest in this election.  Frankly, this time in 2004 I don’t really recall any street-wear label’s rolling out their line of John Kerry T’s (and thank god for that).  Anyway, Thriving Ink, the East Bay “artist collaborative” is the latest to join Obama T-shirt mania with their “Hope Is Dope” collection, which donates an unnamed percentage to fight hunger in the Philippines. While these things are obviously subjective, I can’t say I am blown away by any of the designs, but they are definitely not bad just not tremendously original. For example, what the fuck is with the giant printing of EVERYTHING?  Now as previously stated on this site, I am a big Obama fan, but why the fuck would I want a giant Obama face t-shirt?  Now I recognize that this is popular right now, so I am not faulting Thriving Ink, but I still just don’t get it.  On that note, what’s with the resurgence of cassette tapes on t-shirts and tattoos? I may only be 28, but I remember with clarity that cassettes were not exactly the ideal media for listening to music, yet hipsters iconify the damned things as if they were the coolest shit since 8-tracks.  Forgive the off-topic rant, but to me this exemplifies the hollowness of hipster culture in general. Its as if some hipster czar randomly assign status to the most arbitrary items and they become cool despite their lack of any real intrinsic worth, just because some douche bag in Williamsburg thought “wouldn’t it be irreverant of me to put a cassette tape on a t-shirt?” Fuck cassette tape shirts.   You can check out the Obama shirts here.

In the often heated debate to determine whether American Apparel founder Dov Charney is indeed a total douche bag or possibly just a misunderstood sexual deviant, this latest piece of news clearly lands in the DB column.  May 30th saw the filing of yet another sexual harassment charge against Charney in which he allegedly screamed at a female employee to “pretend to masturbate.”  Now I know what you are thinking, I must be reading old newspapers or something, but in fact this latest case is in fact entirely new (the fifth one).  Now aside from being a raging misogynistic douche-bag, who demands for someone to “pretend to masturbate?”  That’s just plain weird, Charney.

Go to TMZ to see the court papers, although they are rather blurry and completely boring. Except for the part about the screaming and the pretending.

ed. note: I wanted to wait on this one until it the article was publicly available online. You can see the complete version here in the WSJ.

“If you’re offended by sexual innuendo or masturbation or sexual coloring books — if you’re offended by any of these, then don’t work here,” Mr. Charney says, [apparently unaware that in this country employees are legally entitled to a workplace free from sexual harassment].

This gem of a quote from our friend, American Apparel founder and complete douche-bag (we finally decided), Dov Charney appeared in last weekends front page lambaste of the company in the Wall Street Journal.  Ok, lambaste might be a stronger word than might actually be accurate, but I take my journalistic cues from Matt Drudge.  The article details American Apparel’s many financial woes particularly in the arena of bookkeeping know-how and liability from the Dov factor.  Despite robust growth in 2007 to almost 400 million fucking dollars, AA stock is down more than 40% since its IPO intended to raise much needed cash to finance new store openings.  My question after reading these numbers is who the hell is buying this crap?  Even if you count every hipster in Brooklyn, $400m is a lot of gold lamay hot-pants.   Personal feelings about AA aside, I can’t possible imagine how the bottom isn’t going to drop out of this fad.  According to the WSJ AA now has more than 187 stores packed with some of the most ridiculous looking garments I have ever seen.  All of this really just leaves me baffled. Anyway, if you are looking for coherent analysis, read the article because you certainly aren’t going to find it here, and frankly I should probably be working now.