History of outstanding brand

 1969, January 31 – The birth of Dov Charney in Canada, the founder of American Apparel.

Having entered in St. George's School in Montreal, which is between America and Canada, Dov fell in love with American culture. Being a teenager he already had a clear idea of how to run a business.

1984 – 15 years old Dov started transporting clothes of American companies “Hanes” and “Fruit of the Loom” to Canada. As these companies were manufacturing basic knitted clothes and Canadian market lacked such staff.

1987 - Charney entered Tufts University, America's oldest university of international relations and diplomacy, but three years later left University.  It was during Charney's freshman year at Tufts University that the company took on the name "American Apparel" and began to experiment with screenprinting, importation and other parts of the apparel business.

1989 - Dov took a loan from his father ($ 10,000) to develop its own clothes and created American Apparel, although just in a few years, the company had been on the edge of bankruptcy, but survived.

1997 – American Apparel settled in Los Angeles. There Charney signed a contract with entrepreneur Sam Lim and soon moved to LA his factory, where personnel of American Apparel started to work permanently. During that time the brand operated primarily as a wholesale supplier, selling its products to other brands for making prints and other processing.

2000 - American Apparel moved into its current factory in downtown Los Angeles where it continued to grow primarily as a wholesale business, selling blank T-shirts to screenprinters, uniform companies and fashion brands.

2003 – Opening of the first American Apparel store in the heart of Los Angeles. 

2005 - Dov Charney began to embody his idea of outright advertising, and is slogan bacame: «You don't need to be nude to feel dirty». Such advertising was positively perceived by the target audience of American Apparel - young boys and girls. On the T-shirts of the company appeared images of porno actresses such as Sasha Grey, Lauren Phoenix, Charlotte Stokely and Faye Reagan.

Moreover in 2005, the company, having already achieved great success in the wholesale trade, began to take the first steps in retail business. The company was ranked 308th in Inc.'s 2005 list of the 500 fastest growing companies in the United States, with a 440% three-year growth and revenues in 2005 of over US$211 million.
2006 - American Apparel announced reverse merger, in which Endeavor Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company founded in July 2005, bought the company for $360 million. The merger closed in December 2007, at which point American Apparel became a publicly traded company. As a result, Charney became the President and Chief Executive Officer of the publicly traded company known as American Apparel, Inc. He also remained the majority shareholder.

2007 - In New York and Los Angeles two billboard featuring Woody Allen appeared, only for a week. Dov took the shot from the 1977 year movie "Annie Hall", with Woody in the image of the Rebbe, and signed in Yiddish: "The Holy Rebbe", thus hinting at a romance of Woody with Soon-Yi Previs, who was younger than Woody by 34 years. Woody Allen did not give permission to use his own image in advertising. That’s why Allen sued American Apparel, and only in May 2009, received compensation of five million dollars (half of what his lawyers claimed).

In 2007, American Apparel has also become one of the most commercially successful U.S. factories. Just outside the country their income for that year accounted more than $ 125 million.

                      








2008 – Provocative advertising campaign of American Apparel was continued by promotional photo shoots with half-naked workers of American Apparel. This campaign was banned in several European countries.

Also in 2008 it was rapid sales growth, reporting $545 million in total sales and exported sales of more than $200 million.
2010 - American Apparel's auditors, Deloitte & Touche, reconciled after informing the company that its financial statements for 2009 may not be reliable. The resignation led to investigation by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. Then in August, the company was threatened with being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange for failing to submit a quarterly earnings report. It faced lawsuit from some of its investors. Revenues declined, and total debts rose to $120 million, and the company was in danger of defaulting on a $80-million loan from British-based Lion Capital LLP. Commenting on the loss of 1,500 workers due to concerns over illegal immigration Charney said "It broke our efficiencies and generated a situation where we were late delivering garments. It lost us an enormous amount of money. It cost us agility."