Ask Dov Charney if a borderless world - his idea of utopia - would erode cultural identities and he thunderously exclaims: "Magna Carta 1215! They anticipated that international merchants should be able to come to Great Britain and sell their goods. I think it's section 43 or 42, you can look it up on Google.
Charney, 39, the founder, creative director and chief executive of the casual clothing company American Apparel, believes the worldwide brand expansion he began in 1998 from his Los Angeles headquarters is promoting a creative conversation with the international consumer, who now can buy his simple but vibrant smoke-thin T-shirts, skinny jeans and underwear in 231 stores worldwide.
Not since Prada's black nylon satchels in the 1990s has brand anonymity been as fashionable as it is now among a post-It bag generation. Currently, almost every other girl on European streets is carrying a logo-less American Apparel duffel bag.
But if everyone, everywhere is wearing American Apparel, is it a kind of generic uniform?
"At American Apparel," Charney explains animatedly, "people can mix our basics into their wardrobe as they like, with vintage or with luxury or with something you pick up at Monoprix. One person could cut their shirt with a pair of scissors."
Jodie Harrison, executive style and grooming editor of British GQ, is a perfect example of the mix: "I happen to wear American Apparel practically every day of the week. I wear my new zip-up black body top under my YSL blazer. I wear my amazing coral pink jeans with my Rick Owens black leather jacket."
Hatty Morris, a 24-year-old artist from central London, says she loves the versatility of her American Apparel body stocking, describing that "its tiny cut and stretchy material work in harmony to produce a body sock so snug it has a squeezing and supporting effect."
Charney says he has no pretensions for his company, which had $387 million in sales in 2007, to compete with dominant brands like Gap, partly because he is serving a different, urban market. "My body type is underserved," he says. "The average guy that the Gap looks at is a bigger guy. The people in the city are younger and fitter. We're not dealing with suburban American sensibilities; that's already served very well.
"There's an urban American landscape, which is connected to the international landscape."
As a teenager in Montreal, Charney was obsessed with American culture, particularly the nation's underwear. The young entrepreneur began importing the Hanes brand but, when he began to feel Hanes' production outsourcing was loosening its grip on solid American design, he set up his own "American" business in 1997, with everything made in one building in central Los Angeles.
With stores in countries like (deep breath) China, Britain, Mexico, France, Israel, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Australia and others, American Apparel is the largest clothing manufacturer in the United States in terms of domestic production. Despite its size, however, every store is individually designed in a postmodernist style and has the feel of an intimate clothier, selling what Charney calls "open-minded, international, metropolitan, flexible fashion."
Charlie Porter, 34, deputy editor of the fashion magazine Fantastic Man, based in Amsterdam, observes, "What's great about American Apparel is that, even though there are stores everywhere, it still feels like you are having an individual dialogue with them. It's still a thrill to shop there."
The label's ethical and environmental concerns - production is heavily powered by solar energy, and employees get fair wages and generous benefits - have charmed consumers' consciences in an over-saturated market.
As Harrison says, "Prices are unfamiliarly high when compared to similar brands but then, unlike some other brands, so are the standards and the morals behind them."
Joel Howland, a 22-year-old from London who works in hedge funds, notes that Charney's clothes are not "prohibitively expensive as you might expect, bearing in mind the economic implications of ethical American manufacture."
A men's Organic Fine Jersey short sleeve T-shirt retails for $19, on americanapparel.net. In comparison, a similar, but non-organic T-shirt on gap.com is $18.
Todd Slater, managing director of equity research at Lazard Capital Markets in New York, notes, "American Apparel is a contrarian idea, as it is making clothes without sweatshop labor, paying a living wage and provides all workers with equity and health care for themselves and their families - because domestic manufacturing allows for faster time leads, faster cycle times, more flexibility in production and better quality."
In December 2007, American Apparel merged with Endeavor Acquisition and went public. Slater sees the label's outlook as rosy: "American Apparel is the most compelling global growth brand, both from a valuation and fundamental perspective. It is growing its store base 30 percent or more this year and sales are tracking above $500 million."
Slater believes that this solid financial situation is greatly due to the brand's urban appeal and a good balance between its price and customers' perception of its value.
Charney says the American Apparel customer appreciates "garments that fit well, that drape well; we try to optimize the quality."
Raised by a mother who was an artist and a father who was an architect, Charney learned about the beauty of functional design from a young age. American Apparel shuns visible branding, a view he shares with Naomi "No Logo" Klein, who went to high school with him in Montreal. This brand anonymity appeals. As Howland, the Londoner, says, "I like to avoid looking like a billboard for one label so I tend to wear American Apparel with jeans and plain sneakers."
"I am an intuitive designer," Charney says. "I put it on and I see if it's tight or not. I love the touch of fabric." The designer, who has no formal fashion training, says, "I've seen photographs of Yves Saint Laurent in a fitting and I thought, 'That's how we do it!' I try on all my underwear designs before they go into production."
Charney says he becomes "obsessed with one garment, I get locked into a madness where I try to redesign the perfect pant. I made 150 versions of our men's underwear. We make incremental changes to the designs all the time."
Having absolute creative direction means design is not done "by committee necessarily," according to Charney, who says the process is more like "a crown discussing matters with his cabinet. Fashion is not a democracy; if not, you get Old Navy," which means, in fashion-speak, a clothing line without focus. His committee is composed of hipsters who he hires because "they have great style and get the brand." Some even have formal design educations.
Charney is a talented colorist. At his stores a pair of boxer briefs are a shade of pink that suggests a peach trying, but failing, to be a plum. Even socks can be found in a strange-but-familiar version of orange, as if they had been left in the sun to fade gently. "My choice is about whim and seeing a color on a street and thinking it perfect," he says.
Morris, the painter from London, is drawn in by Charney's technicolor vision: "Clean block colors of every shade, simple bold shapes and the occasional eccentric cut dares you to try the clothes on."
Charney also is developing fabrics like a supple cotton that changes color based on body heat. Antonia Weiss, 21, a trainee architect from Frankfurt, said in an e-mail interview that she enjoys the fabric research that goes into Charney's designs, as she describes her favorite metallic duffel bag: "The reflective fabric gets hypnotizing in bright sunlight. It's also got a touch of 'Queen of the Night' glamour (from The Magic Flute that is)."
One thing that inevitably arises in any discussion of American Apparel is its sex-addled image - something that might be expected to harm its international appeal, particularly in the Middle East and Orient. The label uses images that border on soft porn (all shot by Charney) that feature young healthy urbanites in various states of undress and in poses that would make an Abercrombie & Fitch model blush.
Harrison, of British GQ, describes her first encounter with an American Apparel ad: "There it was, just as it was. A nubile girl in a pair of white-striped knee-high sports socks and very little else. No retouching, no light trickery and definitely no illusions. After years looking blankly at campaign perfection, it was little wonder everyone was responsive to this new mood in marketing. This was porno. This was brilliant. Here was a brand that was doing something modern, something urgent."
Charney maintains that the sensual element of his company is fashion business-as-usual. "I think sex is a driving force in all brands. I think Diesel puts sex out there as much as we do. Yves Saint Laurent does. Media forces in the United States have defined me as being overly sexual and it's completely sensational."
Weiss, the Frankfurt architectural trainee, says she also is attracted to the label's advertising campaigns, explaining, "It's a really well-balanced mix of sincere motives and a healthy sense of humor - a combination that is really quite rare in fashion."
"It's been said that the European customer is very critical, and I would agree. It's very true," Charney says. "But there is something that they are responding to in us, and I sincerely believe it's the lack of pretense in our brand."
