It was brought to my attention yesterday, VIA Twitter, though I can't remember who tweeted it, that American Apparel is filing for bankruptcy in the near future.
I have mixed feelings about this. First of all, I love AA for their basics. I know a lot of people (including myself at times) think it's ridiculous to pay $25 for a plain tshirt, but when you start looking around it's actually REALLY difficult to find a good plain tshirt! AA fits nice, it feels nice, it holds up nicely... I think it's worth a couple extra dollars for that.
What I don't love about them, and what I think ultimately is killing them, is their soft-core homemade porn marketing strategy. I don't REALLY want to see a girl bending over with her butt up in the air wearing nothing but a string bikini. Nor do I wish to see some creep with a stash in tighty-whiteys. I think they are limiting their branding too much. They need to expand their marketing strategy to reach a larger majority of the population. What I will say for their models though: at least they're not all skinny anorexic bitches. The majority look fairly normal sized. I'll give them props for that.
I don't think AA is going to disappear overnight. Some locations are probably going to be closing. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed it's not the one in Cincinnati.
