A toe dip in a sea of T-shirts
In a move to put a new spin on a sore subject, American Apparel Inc. is opening stores in China this spring, stocking them with T-shirts, shorts and hoodies made in downtown Los Angeles.
Talk about swimming against the tide: A third of the clothes sold in the U.S. come from China. Just 6% of the things we wear are made here.
Whether the Chinese will warm to American Apparel’s logo-free, no-glitz offerings as they have to loftier brands -- such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci -- and to trendy lower-priced fashions is a big unknown.
Chief Executive Dov Charney acknowledged the challenge. His company sells “well-designed basics,” while luxury goods are a “bit bourgeoisie and nouveau riche,” he said. But “young people tend to like Audi better than the Bentley, so maybe it can work.”
Nor is it clear that the company’s sexually charged marketing and political activism -- a recent ad supporting undocumented workers said: “The status quo amounts to an apartheid system” -- will fly in a country run by communists.
Charney said the stores’ clerks would be paid more than the U.S. minimum of $5.85 an hour, exceeding what some Chinese workers make in a day.
Cai Yanchao, 19, who sells clothes at Hot Wind, a Shanghai shop, hadn’t heard of American Apparel, which already has stores in 13 countries. But the teen, who makes about $214 a month (and gets room and board), said $5.85 “sounds like a lot to me.”
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Times researcher Cao Jun in Shanghai contributed to this report.
