printwear market, according to a ranking by Nielsen.
Gildan was founded by Glenn Chamandy in 1984 with a similar homegrown, scrappy vibe as Charney, who is also Canadian. Along with American Apparel, it owns t-shirt brand Anvil and PEDS Legwear. It was a purchase that made sense to analysts at the time - Gildan is a major player in the T-shirt business, selling its own imprintable basics alongside private-label activewear and hosiery. More than 100 stores worldwide closed in early 2017.Ĭanada-based Gildan purchased American Apparel at auction for $88 million. American Apparel had not made a profit since 2009, according to its initial bankruptcy filing. A second bankruptcy filing took place 13 months later. In October 2015, the company filed for Chapter 11. The board of American Apparel ousted Charney in 2014 amid sexual misconduct allegations. “ They were an icon in selling that made-in-USA model.”Īt its height, American Apparel had more than 250 stores worldwide and reported annual revenue of about $630 million.īut its founder’s alleged misconduct, its advertising methods’ backlash, its strained relationships with its creditors and its slumping sales sent American Apparel into an eventual tailspin. It helped their marketing strategy and their bottom line,” she said. “So many other companies, and here it is, this one main company targeting this group of consumers that was interested in goods that were made in the USA. While the company’s advertising campaigns caught the eye of teens and millennials, its Made-in-USA marketing did, too, said Nioka Wyatt, director of the fashion merchandising and management program at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. When its stores began to proliferate in 2004, the company was known for its long-wearing separates as much as the hypersexualized nature of its marketing, an element that was often scrutinized during the brand’s heyday. What’s left behind is just a shadow of the brand American Apparel used to be, and what a generation of shoppers may view as just a cheaper, foreign-made copy of itself.ĭov Charney founded American Apparel in 1989, but the brand didn’t become a household name until it added a retail component to its wholesale slate of imprintable T-shirts and other basics. In January 2020, the Made in USA shop tab disappeared altogether. By October, the site’s Made in USA shop contained only four articles listed in product descriptions as made in the U.S.
In March of that year, the website began to make it less obvious which items were made in the United States versus elsewhere. But American Apparel’s new “Made in USA” shop, which launched on its website in 2017 with a selection of the brand’s most popular items, quietly began to vanish in 2019. When Gildan bought American Apparel after its second bankruptcy filing, it had plans to revive the storied brand, including at least a portion of its U.S.-made ethos. The company still exists today, though it’s no longer under the reins of its notorious founder, Dov Charney Canadian company Gildan Activewear, Inc.
In the early aughts, Los Angeles-based American Apparel seemed to have it all, offering a heavy dose of sex appeal on top of its domestic production and palatable prices.
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