Dov Charney is photoshopped into a shot 1970s-style cleavage on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek. This is happening to you and you can’t stop it.
In June, Charney was dismissed as president and CEO of American Apparel for a multitude of reasons but mostly because the company is losing money and he hasn’t been able to stop the financial bleeding. Bloomberg covers his ousting and also poses the question many asked, with the litany of sexual misconduct accusations, lawsuits and questionable stories involving Charney — why wait until now to dismiss him?
“I know there’s a lot of people who have criticized us very severely for not taking action earlier than we did,” says Allan Mayer, American’s Apparel’s co-chairman. “I get it. But there’s nothing I would do differently. You don’t want to embark on a course of action that will bring down the whole house. That’s destroying the village to save it.”
And then he added this:
“Dov is very intense. He’s very charismatic. And anybody who is so passionate and so totally devoted to what he’s doing can be attractive. So he’s always been subjected to a lot of temptation.”
Yes, because the temptation of masturbating in front of journalists is hard to refuse? Then Mayer said this:
“If you took out the sex, it would be kind of boring. And if you took out the idealistic component—our commitment to the sweatshop-free, made-in-USA philosophy—it would just be sleazy. But you put them together, and you have something that’s interesting. It’s edgy, but it’s also strangely wholesome at the same time.”
Yes, a headless young girl with her legs open and multiple crotch shots covered by a swath of bathing suit material is very Cosby Show. Rudy Huxtable would totally wear that. Does Mayer know that he’s not helping to rebuild American Apparel’s sleazy image without Charney, which is also what part of his firing was about? From Mayer’s description, it sounds like you can’t have the clothes without the sleaze factor and that’s unfortunate.