Days after it was reported that American Apparel is airbrushing nipples and pubic hair off of its models, ANIMAL has learned that that the millennial retailer is apparently looking to avoid featuring “Instagram hoes or THOTS” in its ad campaigns. “THOT” is a slang abbreviation for the phrase “that hoe over there.”
An employee within the company who asked to remain anonymous forwarded a copy of a recent email sent by PhotoGenics Media for an American Apparel casting call at the retailer’s Los Angeles headquarters on March 18th. The description of the photo shoot, per the e-mail, reads:
“***COMPANY IS GOING THROUGH A REBRANDING IMAGE SO WILL BE SHOOTING MODELS MOVING FORWARD. REAL MODELS. NOT INSTAGRAM HOES OR THOTS.”
It’s unclear what direction PhotoGenics received from American Apparel regarding the casting call. When contacted by phone, PhotoGenics Agency Director Phira Luon said that the situation was being sorted out with the client. He later assumed full responsibility for the email’s contents:
The casting email and its contents were intended for a handful of models that would be attending the casting. As with all internal company emails, it contained information that may be confidential and protected by the attorney-client and may constitute non-public information.
it was intended to be conveyed only to the designated recipients in that email. Any use, dissemination, distribution, or reproduction of the message by unintended recipients is not authorized and may be unlawful.The comment made at the end was made in jest with models whom i have a personal relationship with and did not reflect the views, or directives by the client. i apologize to all those who were offended or affected by my comments, as it was not my intention.
While Luon took the blame for the e-mail’s offensive language, the American Apparel employee said that the overall message of the e-mail was consistent with the new direction employees had received in regards to its models. American Apparel has been (and continues to be) criticized for sexualizing models who look underage, but the company was also lauded for its use of “regular people” in campaigns and minimal Photoshopping. The company’s “real people” aesthetic, which promoted pretty people from within the company and actively searched outside of the casting world, was not perfect, but insiders are worried that the new leadership is moving away from its official “regular people” stance entirely.
According to the employee, American Apparel Senior Vice President of Marketing Cynthia Erland was behind the new airbrushing policy and has been pushing for a rebrand that conforms to industry standards favoring predominantly white models 5’7” or taller. She is said to have commented that current women featured on the site are too “short” and “round” and wants to cast models who look Eastern European or Russian.
Erland was brought in by CEO Paula Schneider on March 9. Schneider has been working to distance the clothing brand from its controversial and eccentric founder and former CEO Dov Charney. After Schneider took over last summer, she vowed to tone down the overt sexuality of the brand’s ads while maintaining the site’s socially conscious, edgy vibe. Under Erland’s gaze, however, multiple people familiar with the company’s marketing work say the brand is losing touch with the diversity of its audience.
Erland did not respond to ANIMAL’s calls.
This is a prime example of feminism entrenched in capitalism as American Apparel portrays their brand as ‘socially conscious.’ American Apparel never truly believed in feminism in the way that no brand can believe in an ideology, as their main intent is to profit from it. There is a way to use the ‘master’s tools’ in media and advertising to educate an audience, which is better then perpetuating forms of oppression through media and advertising. Although, American Apparel never even did much to educate its audience. When you first look at American Apparel’s advertising it can be seen as empowering in the way that it puts average(ish) girls on it’s website and advertising. These women are not all white, stick thin 5’7. The first issue I have with American Apparel is their former CEO, Dov Charney, who created a big part of their now former image. Several women have filed sexual harassment offenses against Dov Charney (and his notorious “cock socks”). Maybe if the CEO of the brand was a feminist who was consciously using these objectified photos in some ‘empowering’ way and not a white, sexist man who gets off to these photos of really young, half naked women. Patricia Hill Collins discusses ‘personal accountability’ in The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought, which is a part of the Afrocentric feminist epistemology, where the author’s character and values are just as pertinent as their body of work. Yes. We can separate American Apparel from Dov Charney and say, “hey this is actually pretty cool and represents all different body types and races”, but if the person creating these images is a sexist then they are not empowering. As Collins would argue, they are coming from his white male body of knowledge which, ‘reflects the interests and standpoints if its creators” (Collins 751). So yeah, these advertisements of women are objectifying.
Another part of their brand that irks me is the fact that American Apparel tries to pretend that their clothing is socially conscious by letting artists like Petra Collins create t-shirts. Petra Collins created a hairy, bloody vagina t-shirt last year for the company, which put American Apparel in a good light, even though their company persisted to objectify women and keep Dov Charney in charge. This t-shirt also did nothing to challenge the patriarchy as it used the master’s tools to carry on the white feminist idea that recognizing period blood, nipples and pubic hair will be the end of sexism.
The new ‘rebranding’ only adds to their hypocrisy because it become apparent that the brand does not care about showing average(ish) models, but they care about keeping their ‘socially conscious’ angle, while still attracting the most customers. The rebranding of American Apparel consists of making sure all the models are white, skinny and tall. No part of this shows me that American Apparel cares at all about feminism they just care about capitalizing on an image and separating themselves from their sexist, former CEO so they can keep their ‘edgy’ vibe. No. In saying in the casting call, ‘No Instagram hoes or thots’ they are directly bashing on curvy women and women of color. They are saying that black women and curvy women represent a deviant sexuality that takes away from the ‘rebranding’ of their image.
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