You might have noticed recently that every single American Apparel store in the world – all 227 of them – closed down and you could no longer order the brand online anymore. Despite being incredibly successful, the company had somehow managed to acquire a 177 million dollar debt and was bought by Canadian t-shirt company Gildan Activewear back in February, who promptly closed the online store down and any brick and mortar ones that were still out there.
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It was thought that this would be the end of it, but it turns out that the CEO of Gildan Glenn Chamandy has changed his mind, deciding to open the American Apparel online store back up. He had this to say about his decision at a press conference on August 3rd:
At the end of the day we will do very well with this brand – remember at one point they were making $600 million in online sales.
This will hopefully be one of the best acquisitions the company has ever made, in terms of return on investment, so we’re very excited about it.
We’re going to continue to focus on our distribution. We’re going to focus on our direct to consumer. We’re going to expand internationally. We think that this could be quite big as we go forward.
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Sounds like he’s pretty confident, which again makes it kind of stupid that he even closed it down in the first place and said he had no intention of opening it up again. I suppose that’s all part of the marketing legend though.
The clothing isn’t going to be exactly the same though, as it’s no longer going to be made in Los Angeles. Gildan intends to manufacture it at several of their low cost manufacturing plants in Central America and the Caribbean, making it much cheaper for the consumer. This kind of goes against the whole ethos of the brand, as its whole thing was that it was made in America, but I guess money talks.
There is going to be a section of the store dedicated to clothing manufactured in America, but this is set to be markedly more expensive than its Central American counterparts. Fantastic. The website should be online in the next two weeks if you’re interested.
For more American Apparel, check out when they sold a t-shirt with a bleeding vagina on the front. Classy.
