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Well, it looks like our favorite middle-aged T-shirt peddler, Dov Charney, has found yet another way to get himself some unfavorable publicity. Gawker received a tip from a disgruntled American Apparel store manager who says that Dov told stores that weren’t doing so well to send in group photos so that Dov could personally weed out the uggos from the precious bastion of aesthetic perfection (and irregularly made jersey separates) that is American Apparel. Of course, this is all just rumor and we don’t know for sure if Dov really ordered stores to do something so idiotic, but judging from our past experiences with Dov Charney’s hardcore dum-dumbery, we wouldn’t really put it past him. In fact, former Jezebel editor Moe Tkacik once documented her own previous experiences with Dov Charney’s “off-message cleansing” when, years ago, he weeded out the uber-political, WTO-obsessed sales kids that used to flock to work for American Apparel because of its sweatshop-free policy.
However, let’s get one thing straight: this happens a lot in retail–it is just usually not said so bluntly. Managers at retail stores will often hire and fire people based on looks. Usually, when these stores spurn someone based on aesthetic reasons, they use carefully constructed retail doublespeak to hide their real concern with their employee. Oh, you know, it was budget cutbacks or you are suddenly scheduled for the worst shifts to motivate you to quit or you are told you violate the “Look Policy” because you wear a cardigan to cover your prosthetic limb. You know, just your regular bullshit. These stores are usually “smart” enough to not directly tell managers to fire or not hire someone because they are unattractive, they usually just use coded language to try to get the message across. (My personal favorite, in all my years of working retail, was “groomed.” What are we, show dogs? Yes, yes we are.) So, it isn’t as if Dov Charney is the only clothier to be “lookist” with his sales staff, he is the just the only one to be dumb enough to tell hundreds of store managers during a conference call that he wants to personally go over the people that work in stores.
So now American Apparel store employees can get nervous about losing their job because they don’t conform to Dov Charney’s personal taste in attractiveness (which is pretty much just young and partially clothed). Hurray! And yet, as Dov preaches the importance of making his stores only full of dime pieces and Baldwins, he gets to roam from store to store looking like a stumpy, hirsute “creepy uncle” from a 1970s PSA against child sexual abuse, wearing the clothes made for a man less than half his body weight and a quarter of his age and screeching at underpaid sales associates with a voice that sounds like a squeaking dog toy. I hope American Apparel’s investors and stock holders are paying attention to their CEO’s irrational behavior.
Allegedly!
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I can’t wait until this man is either finally sued into bankruptcy or convicted of a sex crime and tossed into jail.
I know a girl who just got a job there- She had to sign an agreement stating that *if* Dov molested/raped her she couldn’t take him to public court.
Umm.
Did she sign it?
Well shes working there now, So I can only assume she did, exchanging her morals for some shitty unisex garb
*shaking head* Lame.
Also, I don’t care how many male models they make wear them, v-neck shirts aren’t unisex. They’re for people with tits. For showing off the tits.
I swear to God if I see one more guy in a v-neck shirt I’m going to throw my frappuccino at him.
Avoid LA at all costs Alzaetia! The v-necks are everywhere!!!
Too late. I live in SoCal. That’s why my annoyance has reached frappuccino throwing velocity…
I’d love a copy of that waiver.
I call bs on that, if that was a common thing, it would have been all over the news long ago.
Hey, there’s this thing called “google.” If you try plugging in Dov Charney’s name along with the word “lawsuit” you’ll get all sorts of info on the various lawsuits naming him as the defendant.
Just because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.
I don’t see how it can be legal…any lawyer worth her weight in salt would tear that “contract” to pieces in a court…
I seriously doubt this happened. First of all, when you apply to work there they make you send in some pictures with your application. And if you send in some photoshopped pics or something I’m sure the would find out at the interview, so if they did have a ” No fatties” policy they probably wouldn’t have hired an unattractive person in the first place. Secondly, It isn’t remotely unusual for a store to hire only good looking people. Just look through the craigslist listings for retail workers and food servers/hostesses, tons of them want pictures with your resume. It may be unfair, but it is unfortunately the norm, and I don’t understand why every one singles out AA for it.
Is that picture of the ugly guy in his underwear and the ugly chick in the nude leotard an example of who he wants working in his store?
The ugly SOB in the green Y-fronts is Dov himself.
Everytime I see photos of him, I feel like my eyes are contracting a STD.
Hahaha! Maybe sunglasses will work as a sort of eye condom.
No no no no… when THEY’RE ugly it’s *ironic.* See, because they’re actually pretty people just pretending to be ugly.
They are very, very convincing…
One, the people who work and model at American Apparel tend to be HIDEOUS, from all I’ve seen. This guy’s tastes are disgusting.
Two, like I needed another reason not to shop at that crapsack. I bet there’s another rule for hiring workers: must be condescending pricks with no sense of style who enjoy being assholes to everyone who walks into the store not wearing Saved By The Bell era clothes and fake glasses the size of Jupiter.
Ha!
Maybe it’s my taste, but everytime I’ve been in the employees have been dressed well and no more pricks than most retail employees.
To each their own, I guess.
It may just be taste then, because in my mind, wearing American Apparel is the exact opposite of dressing well. Then again, they do tend to base how nice they are on how the customers are dressed.
besides having totally skeevy ads, AA’s clothes suck big time – really poorly made, weak seams, uneven hemlines, buttons that are hanging by a thread etc.
Hear hear. After taking a one-semester costume design class, I could construct better quality clothes in about two hours.
I have never shopped there. I have never ever been in the store. Every time I walk past one, I look in the window and think, “these clothes are made for tweens trying to look sexy”. You don’t have to show your stomach or ass to be sexy…sexy is so much more than that…
Close: it’s aimed at teens/20somethings trying to look sexy AND edgy (though the people who shop at AA RARELY look as good as their models…who, again, I think tend to be DISGUSTING looking). Tweens couldn’t afford the clothes, psh.
This guy looks like a reject from a low budget underground 70’s porn flick so who the hell is he to call anyone ugly? What a creep.
That’s exactly what he looks like! I was trying to put my finger on exactly how cheesy he is. That was it!
I worked at Barnes and Noble and our manager definitely hired on looks. And she wasn’t secretive about it, either. It’s like that in any retail environment. You’re selling a product so the person who’s selling it needs to represent the product in the best possible light. For barnes and noble, that meant nerdy stuck up book types, apparently :)
That’s why I’m in love with my local half-price book store – Friendly service rendered by either your grandma or a goth rocker in full plumage. (Also can’t beat the selection and $3 new hardbacks.)
I don’t give two shits what a salesperson looks like, I care about PRICE. And retailers wonder why they’re going down the tubes…..
At the store where I work, the majority of the employees are women over the age of 40…I guess I was hired to be the token young girl.
It depends on what you sell I guess. A 45 year old would look out of place in a Forever 18 store any old time, but just right in a bank or book store.
Not fair to say a 45 year old belongs in a bank or a bookstore. There are plenty of gorgeous, sexy 45 year old women who know how to dress with class, and yes, that means they WILL NOT be at Forever 18.
Well the point I was trying to make is that you will employ people based on how well they fit into the store, meaning what they sell. It was just an example, keep your hat on :-)
I get you… :-)
For the record, a woman in her fifties has worked at my local Hot Topic for the last several years. And she does not look like an aging punk rocker either (most of her clothes are typical old lady clothes from J. C. Penny). It’s kind of weird, because she’s surrounded by 12 year olds buying arm warmers and the other cashier who works with her looks like Britney Spears fell into a vat of weird scene makeup and forgot how to add….
*laughing* Please take a picture of that!
I always thought that AA was loosing money because the socialites at NYU no longer had paid internships in the “media” to support themselves. And now that they are on unemployment, AA and Nobu would be soon going out of business.
Holy hell, that guy is DISGUSTING. He wants to “personally” evaluate the people who work in his stores? What, like look at their teeth, feel their abs, and generally pat them down like a piece of horseflesh? Is he looking for intelligent employees or his next lay? Please, God, let it not be both…
His primary objective is profits and devotion to the stockholders. If ugly people interfere with profits (and I totally agree they do), then they should be sacked. They can find jobs elsewhere. The entire basis of American Apparel is “looks” and how it makes a person feel. Ugly people have no place in that type of business. Cruel fact but a fact nonetheless.