Life lessons from working at American Apparel in its peak
Mesh everything! Consistent sizing is a state of mind! Legalize LA!
Trainwreck’s American Apparel exposé tells the truth on every dimension: it was a cult led by a sex offender hiding under the guise of an altruistic retail disrupter wanting to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Sex sells, but what is sex to a minor? I started at American Apparel in the summer of 2009. I jumped on a bus to the mall and showed up to apply wearing my High School uniform. The bleached pixie, lame leggings, and oversized viscose tank that met me at the cash register looked pleased by my pleated skirt, polo, and knee-high socks. She took my printed resume as a formality and asked me to pose for a full-body photo and a headshot taken with the store’s digital camera to send to Head Office, in lieu of my resume. A week later, I came in for my first shift.
AA was the easiest job I’ve ever had in my entire life. Largely, because there was no real work to be done. Everything was made up! You were paid to wear very flashy and very little clothing, gossip with friends, pick out clothing packages (i.e. free clothes), and in the years where the company was making hundreds of millions, those Justin Bieber hoodies sold themselves. You could spend an entire shift combing through and picking playlists on VIVA Radio, then go spend two hours’ pay on lunch. It was more of an ongoing performance art piece concurrently taking place at 280 American Apparel locations globally.
The blatant signs of a cult
The first ritual you were indoctrinated in was “Perfect Fill”: a mandatory Sunday evening inventory-count completed by the entire staff. You had to come in for the 3-hour ritual even if you weren’t working earlier in the day. Equipped with a clipboard and a set of SKUs to count, you would go through the racks and backstock bins of neon colored cotton, nylon, and denim to spot check from the copious amounts of shoplifting that would take place daily. During my first Perfect Fill, while the floor was filled with silence only interrupted by the stock boys flirting with the sales associates, a tiny sneeze echoed from the front of the store. Psssst. One of the seasoned girls—who I’d later learn was a Dov Girl—shook her head in my direction. Annoyed, she whispered, “She stole my sneeze.” At 16, no one had yet equipped me with a response to such a loaded accusation. “That sneeze? That’s my sneeze. I can’t believe she’s copying me.” Unsatisfied with my lack of response, she moved on to another rack of clothing to confide in someone else.
“Idiot of the week”: Dov would sporadically review the class photos we were mandated to send in daily to Head Office. Once on a conference call with managers from all locations, he locked into a photo from my store. “There’s this one guy, that guy with boat shoes… I’m sick of seeing these fucking shoes, ok? It’s not on-brand. Look at this guy’s face, he’s looking like he just escaped from the Douglas.” Dov is from Montreal. The Douglas is a Montreal psychiatric hospital. The lashings were public, and they were regular.
Hierarchy was to be respected, while entirely elastic. By 18, I had become manager of a retail store—responsible for sales reporting, Grand & Toy supply orders, and scheduling staff; my Neopets guild management had come to good use! This also came with hiring and firing, but what did a teen know about holding someone’s livelihood in their hands? There was a twisted sort of magic in knowing that any role was well within your reach. Friends would become merchandisers because the clothing looked good on them, we got our first company phones, and we became graphic designers with no Adobe experience. There was no shortage of upward mobility if you looked the part. By my third year at the company, I became the District Trainer and was responsible for onboarding and training all new hires for all 8 stores in the market. What was my previous experience to qualify for such a role, you ask? Well, I was fired from my last job for getting caught eating frozen yogurt directly from the machine.
The upside of accidentally joining a cult is community!
The petty drama that comes with a bunch of cool-looking teens spending opening hours together bonded you very quickly. The community you got hired into was unbreakable, and to this day, many of my good friends are people I am permanently trauma-bonded with from working at American Apparel. You inevitably would go out, and instead of calling in sick, you could just look over to your manager, who naturally was out partying with you and tell them you might be a little late the next day. Instagram didn’t exist. Everyone had BlackBerrys. Clubs were playing “Poker Face” and Ratatat at Ladies Night with endless vodka Redbulls. It was lawless.
In retrospect
With barely any work experience—and little life experience—I was maleable and easily co-opted into uncomfortable situations. Is it not normal for your company’s CEO to take film photos of you while you’re serving customers? Is it not OK to be forced into firing someone after a District Manager made out with them? Should you not wear an AA long-sleeve, low-back mini dress with Jeffrey Campbell Litas to your first boyfriend’s grandmother’s funeral? Ok, fiiiiine, that last one was on me.
Loved this personal piece!! Hope you kept the Litas 🩷
Excellent read after watching the Trainwreck episode!