IF YOU want to be a model for American Apparel these days,
make sure you’re not an “Instagram ho.”
New management
at the struggling clothing company is ditching its longstanding use of amateur
models in favour of leggier and higher-paid professionals — and sometimes the
message isn’t being communicated delicately.
“[The] company
is going through a rebranding image so will be shooting models moving forward,”
LA casting agent Phira Luon wrote in a March 18 email blast to models that was
obtained by The New York Post. “Real models. Not Instagram hoes or
THOTs.”
The email (whose
reference to “THOTs” was a slang abbreviation for “that ho over there”) sparked
a ruckus last week, and Luon followed up with an apology for what he said “was
just an inappropriate off colour joke that was not intended to defame the
clients name or philosophy/views in anyway.”
An American Apparel model featured on the brand’s online store.
Still,
the incident wasn’t isolated as a new executive team at American Apparel looks
to clean up and “corporatise” the culture left by founder Dov Charney, who was
ousted in December on accusations of wilful misconduct.
Last week,
American Apparel’s new senior vice president of marketing, Cynthia Erland, told
as many as 30 employees at a meeting that she didn’t want models who were “too
short and round,” according to three sources who were present at the meeting.
“It’s become a
running joke around the office — like, ‘I can’t do this, I’m too short and
round,’” according to one employee who claimed to have heard the remark. “I’ve
never felt marginalised or unattractive working for this company until his past
week or so.”
In a statement,
Erland responded: “This is completely false. American Apparel embraces body
types of all shapes, ethnicities and sizes, and our model casting has and will
continue to reflect this.”
Elsewhere, new
management — installed by New York hedge fund Standard General, which partnered
with Charney to take control of the board last summer only to later back his
ouster — has been cracking down on what it sees as a sleazy marketing strategy
that developed on Charney’s watch.
Last
week, the blog Animal New York pointed out that American Apparel had airbrushed
out nipples and pubic hair that had been visible in ads for sheer lingerie on
its website.
“It’s pretty
standard with any apparel company that that’s just not shown,” one American
Apparel exec told The Post, defending the crackdown. “There’s no company that
has [nipples and pubic hair] on their website.”
That’s exactly
the point, others counter, arguing that the retailer’s borderline pornographic
marketing strategy is what made the brand unique and relevant to its younger
clientele.
The argument had
been brewing at headquarters for months, with creative director Iris Alonzo
squaring off against General Counsel Chelsea Grayson.
While Grayson
cited “legal reasons” for airbrushing, Alonzo contended that airbrushing would
confuse customers about the products, in addition to damaging the
“authenticity” of the brand, according to a source briefed on the conversation.
Alonzo was fired
last month.
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