American Apparel Inc.: American Apparel campaign
Mark LaneOVERVIEW
American Apparel Inc., founded by Dov Charney in 1997, rose to profitability as a T-shirt maker with an unconventional business model. Countering the almost universal garment-industry practice of outsourcing labor to other countries, Charney located his company headquarters and manufacturing facility in the same building in downtown Los Angeles, paying his factory workers high wages and providing comprehensive benefits. Despite the higher costs of its manufacturing process, the company was able to grow by using a "vertically integrated" structure in which all facets of business were intermingled for maximum efficiency and...