A story in Saturday's Wall Street Journal offers something of a preamble to the final chapter of the American Apparel narrative. There are companies that are more interesting and innovative than American Economy, but none that captures the entire story of the American Economy, What The Fuck Happened Dept. so quickly and efficiently and dystopianly, like a hypersexed science fiction sex.  read more »

Recently I've been in a major fashion slump, meaning that I've been recycling two outfits over and over again for the past few weeks. In fact, my fashion slump has been so serious that I've resorted to wearing my sister's denim mini skirt.  read more »

Perhaps you've heard enough out of American Apparel Chief Executive Onanist Dov Charney . He masturbated in front of a reporter, sleeps with his employees, promotes hot 17-year-olds to replace veterans, took himself public in one of the shadiest entries to the public markets in the history of financial engineering, told the Wall Street Journal the CFO hired to straighten up his finances was a "loser," and generally perpetuates the kind of working environment I'd vilify as the Worst Thing Ever if I didn't kind of respect that he owns the largest remaining clothing factory in the country.  read more »

The NY Observer wants to know why, in a month that might arguably be called financially eventful, Conde Nast Portfolio has put old-newsy sleaze-monger Dov Charney on its cover. They raise a good point: the American Apparel founder's creepiness, idiosyncrasies, success and commitment to "vertically-integrated manufacturing" are not exactly secrets. But it's kind of a good profile, and from it we've been able to extrapolate a definitive Dov Charney dossier than hopefully obviates the need to ever profile him again ever. American Apparel Is Completely Ridiculous: But you knew that.  read more »

The other day the topic of leg warmers came up.After watching her look for leg warmers all season, she told me the other day that she's finally bought one- except she hasn't worn them out yet because she felt that the reality of legwarmers didn't quite match her expectations. They looked much cooler in the pictures, mannequinns and in her imagination (above: American Apparel).  read more »

Filed under: Style in the News  read more »

We hear from someone close to Dov Charney that American Apparel is planning to open a chain of thrift stores.

The stores might start out as adding vintage pieces into existing American Apparel stores, and then branch out into full-scale boutiques of their own.

The concept is rather brilliant especially since Urban Outfitters' vintage line, Urban Renewal, does awfully well - also, the wannabe Strokes who raid American Apparel on a daily basis are also avid thrift shoppers.

Of course, what we're most interested in is a new ad campaign:  read more »

If we were Tim Gunn, we'd say this Ben Sherman ad in Soho worries us. Doesn't it look like something art-designed by Dov Charney? The Ben Sherman store is at 96 Spring Street. The American Apparel store is at 121...Izzy Grinspan

Click the image above to view the full photogallery. Don't say we didn't warn you: American Apparel is seeping into every nook and cranny of this city like some kind of toxic lycra cloud. First we mapped out a total...Cynthia Drescher