Culture

In An Attempt To Improve Its Public Image, American Apparel Just Called Its Models ‘Instagram Hoes’ And ‘THOTs’

Whoops, that's your internal memo.

by Steph Harmon  27 March 2015

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In December last year, after mounting harassment suits, a recorded incident of public genital waving, and that one time he just wouldn’t stop masturbating in front of a female journalist, American Apparel fired their creep of a President, CEO, and figurehead Dov Charney, and replaced him with a woman: Paula Schneider.

For a company that had so many strikes against its name — employment decisions based on full-body photos; rigorous grooming regimes required of its staff; and ad campaigns that were just one pube away from porn (to the extent that finding a SFW photo for this story was ridiculously difficult) — hiring a real live lady seemed to be a move in the right direction. And indeed, while she was less vocal about past mistakes, Schneider has been attempting, step by step, to implement changes to the business and brand culture.

So she’s probably kicking herself for having casting agent Phira Luon on staff, who sent out an internal email earlier this week that underlined exactly what a new image would look like for the brand, initially leaked by the New York Post. “[The] company is going through a rebranding image, so we will be shooting models moving forward,” the email read. “Real models. Not Instagram hoes or THOTs [That Hoe Over There]”.

The new direction also included instructions to blur out nipples, ban pubic hair, and hire leggier models — an expansion of orders allegedly given in a meeting last week by the senior vice president of marketing, Cynthia Erland, who allegedly told around 30 employees that they no longer wanted models who were “short and round“.

And with that, American Apparel models everywhere issued a giant “FUCK YOU TOO” to the company.

“Good luck with that rebranding if that’s the attitude moving forward”, wrote Valerie Chris, an American Apparel model who shared a screen shot of the memo.

Ex-American Apparel model Jessie Andrews was more disappointed at the move towards professional models.

The casting agent Luon has issued an apology for the “hoes” comment, which he’s calling “an inappropriate off colour joke that was not intended to defame the clients name or philosophy/views in anyway”.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to clarify their position on diversity, American Apparel posted this to their Facebook page: “We love all of our models, all shapes and sizes. #welovediversity #weloveyouall”

Screen Shot 2015-03-27 at 9.30.41 AM

Unfortunately for American Apparel, one of the models in the above shot had built her brand on Instagram.

Understandably, she was no longer keen to represent them.

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You gotta give them points for trying? I guess? …Maybe? No?

Okay then. No points.