Dov Charney
Dov Charney, Entrepreneur
In many ways, Dov Charney was groomed since birth for the creative and meticulous commitment required of him as C.E.O. of retail giant American Apparel.
Charney grew up in Montreal, Canada, surrounded by creative parents – his father, Morris, was an architect, while his mother, Sylvia, was a sculptor and painter. Ingenuity and attention to detail was encouraged from the start.
As a young man, Charney would take bus trips from Montreal to nearby U.S. towns. It was during these visits in the early 90s that he noticed the disparity between the comfortable casual clothing on store shelves south of the border and the cheaper polyester blends available in Canada.
Charney started buying Hanes T-shirts and selling them at a premium back home, and the seeds of an American success story were sewn.
After dropping out of Tufts University, outside of Boston, and launching a T-shirt manufacturing company in South Carolina, a venture that ended in bankruptcy, Charney relocated to Los Angeles and started American Apparel as a wholesale T-shirt manufacturer.
In 2003 he rented a small storefront in East Los Angeles and immediately recognized the potential for retail expansion. In the fall of the same year, Charney opened three stores.
Today, American Apparel’s 187 stores in 15 countries sell their signature T-shirts, dresses, leggings, and underwear, among other items.
And as most major retailers have outsourced their manufacturing to the third world, enticed by cheap labor, American Apparel has remained planted in the United States, sweatshop free.
Clothing is made at the company’s 800,000 square-foot location in downtown Los Angeles, the nation’s largest garment factory. Charney pays his workers almost twice the California minimum wage and offers health insurance for $8 a week, both rarities on the bottom rung of the U.S. labor market. Additionally, American Apparel offers workers free English lessons and provides well-lighted and well-ventilated working areas, conditions that have won Charney praise among anti-sweatshop activists.
Sales have been boosted, undoubtedly, by American Apparel’s sexually provocative advertisements – low-fi photos of teenage girls wearing only socks and panties, for example, or camera close-ups of women wearing tight-fitting underwear.
But the brazen advertisements have not come without uproar.
American Apparel garnered unwanted publicity in 2005 when several lawsuits filed by former employees accused Charney and American Apparel of sexual harassment.
Charney has steadfastly denied the charges. And as of April 2008, one case has been dismissed, two have been settled out of court, and one is in arbitration.
In 2006, Charney took American Apparel public through an unconventional 'reverse-merger' with investment firm Endeavor Acquisition Group for an initial value of $382.5 million. Charney remains the company's chief executive officer and maintains his creative freedom.
American Apparel has robust sales in 2007, at $387 million, an increase of 36 percent compared to the previous year, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
And Charney clearly has his sights set on the horizon. American Apparel recently announced that it plans on selling in China and opening up to 45 stores in uncharted markets in Latin America and Europe.
