American Apparel is a clothing manufacturer, distributor and retailer based in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1989 by Canadian entrepreneur, Dov Charney, the company functions as a vertically integrated manufacturer that creates and develops their own advertising and branding campaign. American Apparel stresses the importance of mandating and promoting labour policies that reject clothing manufactures in sweatshops (AmericanApparel. net).
First, this section of this paper will illustrate that American Apparel’s branding and advertising campaign is often effective in eliciting controversy over advertisements in order to attract consumers to the brand. Second, the argument will transition into how American Apparel’s branding model is often viewed as controversial because of the heavily saturated sexual nature of the connotations and denotations within its advertisements.
Lastly, this section will analyze a case study of how American Apparel’s branding model not only creates ads which are demoralizing to women, but initiate a productive dialogue on feminism in modern culture. With observation paid to these three arguments, this essay will assess how American Apparel’s branding model matches its manufacturing model by appealing to progressive and young metropolitan adults while vehemently propagating the sexualization of women within the world of fashion. American Apparel is a highly recognizable international brand for its solid coloured cotton fashions and provocative advertising.
The company sets to appeal to a young and urban demographic through developing original and attention-grabbing advertising. The company is known for its suggestive, yet progressive ad campaigns, which is inspired largely by CEO Dov Charney. Charney usually finds his subjects in downtown LA settings, through casting calls or looks in-house for retail employees (AmericanApparel. net). American Apparel’s advertising mandate showcases young female models without airbrushing. The models are displayed with blemishes and limited make-up.
These ads are usually occupied by a brief personal narrative of the model to establish a personable image (AmericanApparel. net). Charney explains in an interview with ABC News in 2012 why he chose to photograph his models without heavy make-up or airbrushing, “It’s the natural beauty. This person looks like a girl you would meet. She looks like our customer” (Millman. et. al “Tarnished Hero? ”). In applying this idea of natural beauty, Charney is establishing a meaningful dialogue between company consumers to market his products.
In Judith Williamson’s article entitled, “Introduction: Meaning and Ideology” from Decoding Advertisements, Williamson argues the ideological meanings and representations which exist in advertising in order to entice the consumer, “Thus there is a space, a gap left where the speaker should be; and one of the peculiar features of advertising is that we are drawn in to fill that gap, so that we become both listener and speaker, subject and object” (Williamson 14). Consumers become subjected to the ad in a way that they should be able to see themselves using the products through a personable expression.
American Apparel employs this ideology by using models that would look like a customer of theirs. American Apparel is effective in their advertising campaign by establishing an image of their demographic through the models they use; however, the company has been repeatedly criticized for sexually suggestive use of its female models. One advertisement that sparked controversy last year was an image of a model reclining on a bed with her legs in the air, wearing only a grey sweater with her bottom half appearing to be naked (see Figure A).
Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled this ad to be “gratuitous” and “likely to cause offence. ” The ASA reportedly told American Apparel it must never publish this ad again, “in their current form” (Pous, “Intelligent or Indecent? ”). In Susan Bordo’s chapter entitled, “Reading the Slender Body,” Bordo explains how the normalized portrayals of women are culturally coded and encoded to reproduce ideological gender roles in advertising, “The layer of gender-coded signification, suffusing other meanings, over determines slenderness as a contemporary ideal of specifically female attractiveness” (Bordo 204-205).
In this advertisement, the slender female body signifies a dominant narrative which is purely visual with blatant sexually connotations. The gendered representations within an ad like this, which is sexually controversial, function to push boundaries and attract consumers to the brand. Charney explains the implicit connection between sexuality and its undeniable connection to fashion advertising, “Sex is inextricably linked to fashion and apparel.
And it has been and always will be. And our clothing is connected to our sexual expression so of course, advertising related to clothing, there’s going to be a sexual connection forever, whether it’s Calvin Klein, American Apparel, or brands we haven’t even contemplated” (Ryssadal “Pushing boundaries and his biggest weakness”). Charney explains how the semiotic referent systems in place in sexualized advertising are directly connected to the core of the fashion industry and advertising.
The branding and marketing model of American Apparel carries a stigma to be controversial in not only sexually suggestive content in advertising but in progressive ways when facing feminine beauty and sexuality. Last fall, American Apparel put aside the topless models in mesh tights and shifted the discussion to female sexuality through a t-shirt called, “The Ardorous X American Apparel Period Power Washed Tee,” (see Figure B) (store. americanapparel. net). The t-shirt features the vagina of a woman masturbating while on her period.
The t-shirt sparked a public uproar of repulsion and disgust on various social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook (Hamilton, “Bare the Labia and Tackles a Taboo”). The designer of the shirt, Petra Collins, is an OCAD student enrolled in art criticism and curatorial practice. Collins was interviewed by TIME. newsfeed. com and explained how the shirt forces people to confront female sexuality in an unapologetic manner, “I decided to put a super-taboo topic right on a T-shirt to make it viewable for everyone.
We are always repressing or hiding what is natural to a post-pubescent body. We're taught to hate our menstrual cycle and even to hide masturbation” (Hamilton, “Bare the Labia and Tackles a Taboo”). Collins intentions of a thoughtful dialogue on the shirt were misinterpreted. Tracie Egan Morrissey at Jezebel published, “Where the fuck would one wear a menstruating vagina shirt? ” (Morrissey, “Menstruating Vagina Shirt”). In this example, American Apparel fits the branding model to promote a playful yet serious discussion of female beauty and sexuality.
In conclusion, American Apparel’s branding model matches its manufacturing model by appealing to progressive and young metropolitan adults while vehemently propagating the sexualization of women within the world of fashion. American Apparel’s branding model is often viewed as controversial because of the heavily saturated sexual nature of the connotations and denotations within its advertisements. American Apparel’s branding model is often viewed as controversial because of the heavily saturated sexually connotations and denotations within its advertisements.
American Apparel’s branding model not only creates ads, which are demoralizing to women, but initiate a productive dialogue on feminism in modern culture. However, American Apparel normalizes gendered images and norms for women in fashion advertising. The branding model and the manufacturing model match, because the targeted demographic are young urban adults and displaying overt images of sexuality aims to reassociate desires and controversy to the consumers and the fashions being sold by American Apparel.
