American Apparel Could Be Saved — If Only People Would Actually Shop There

American Apparel just missed another financial filing deadline, and for the last period for which the company has made results available, the numbers are not good: during the first nine months of 2010, American Apparel lost $67 million, and same-store sales fell a whopping 14%. (Same-store sales have now been falling at the troubled chain for over two years.) Dov Charney, naturally, still believes his company can be saved. “If we can increase top-line sales by 10 percent at our own stores, that will translate to over $20 million in EBITDA,” he said, referring to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. (Increasing EBITDA is a key provision of the heavily indebted company’s loan covenants; every time American Apparel falls out of compliance, its interest rates get jacked up and its lenders get to call more shots.) See! A hypothetical 10% jump in sales would solve all Dov’s problems! “Staff’s job is to get some gelt into those stores.” Oh, Dov. “In the words of that old Yiddish proverb: ‘Get me an order. Everything else will take care of itself.'” [WWD]
Right now, because of the latest missed filing deadline for its full-year 2010 results, American Apparel is again courting the risk that its stock will be de-listed. The company says it will have 2010 numbers by March 31, and revised 2009 numbers — yep, it still technically hasn’t filed those, either — by April 10. But if its stock price sits below $1 for more than 30 days, that would also trigger de-listing. American Apparel is currently trading at 93 cents a share. [BNet]

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Male model Andrej Pejic, whose long blond hair and delicate features have led many designers to cast him to model women’s wear, says the attention his look has attracted “is nice because it’s offering me a wide array of opportunities. But sometimes I do just have to stop and hit myself in the head with my diamond-encrusted vase.” When asked about Lea T., the transsexual Givenchy campaign model, he replied: “I don’t think my situation and Lea T‘s are completely different when it comes to our personal lives but that’s personal, for me at least. And I really think people should stop trying to categorize me because of their need for labels. When it comes to our professional lives, well she only does women’s wear and I think I cover more fields. Some people in the industry will use us in a very similar way to represent similar ideas and some will want me to be a bit different from her — more androgynous, more boyish or even sex-less rather than womanly. I think professionally I am capable of being very versatile.” [StyleCaster]

• Beijing is banning billboards that celebrate “hedonism” or flaunt luxury products, particularly foreign luxury products, reports the China Daily. The paper says the new law “will target advertisements that ‘promote hedonism’ or ‘the worship of foreign-made products.’” On the banned list are the words “supreme,” “royal,” “luxury,” and “high-class.” What will this do to the burgeoning market for luxury goods in China? [WWD]
• Frankly, if we were a model drinking at the Standard hotel at 3 a.m., and Paz de la Huerta came to table-crash, and then actually crashed into a table, we hope we would have the presence of mind to make a crack as on point as “Triple axel!” Even if it resulted in de la Huerta throwing a glass at us and punching us in the face. Totally worth it. [NYDN]
• Kenneth Cole is no longer allowed to Tweet unsupervised, thanks to that whole “Egyptians are rioting! Must be because they love our new Cairo store, ha ha!” thing. [Glamour]
• Rachel Bilson admits that Karl Lagerfeld had to pose her and act out her blocking on set in order for her to successfully shoot a commercial for an ice-cream cone. She did score a Chanel notebook from the experience, though: “He was writing down something on this Chanel notepad, and he was like, ‘Do you want it?’ And I took it so fast he laughed at me, so I got a Chanel notepad from Karl. And my friend was with me — she was like, ‘Can I at least have a piece of paper from it?’ I was like, ‘Absolutely not.'” [The Cut]
• Jason Wu has some advice for whichever designer ends up making Kate Middleton‘s dress: “Embrace the moment of attention, but be prepared to make your next step. Your career is not just about one experience, one hit show. You have to figure out what your next acts are going to be.” After Wu made Michelle Obama‘s inauguration dress, “I could have been a reality star, a TV personality, a spokesperson for this or that. There were book and movie proposals. They wanted to make me into a ‘personality’. It’s so easy to get caught up in the whirlwind.” [WWD]
• PPR, the French luxury conglomerate that owns Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga, among other brands, has announced a major new eco-initiative, which includes the launch of something the company is calling the “Creative Sustainability Lab, a partnership with Cradle to Cradle that will focus on developing products and retail pilots that integrate and apply objectives such as environmental and social concerns.” This sounds like a bad idea. Doesn’t PPR know that the guy who does the Cradle to Cradle stuff is kind of a huge fraud? [WWD]
• Here is a roundup of some of the fashion businesses that are donating money to Japan. [The High Low]
• Italian tax authorities are looking into the sale of Bulgari to Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy. [WWD]
• You can now see pictures of the full Matthew Williamson collection for Macy’s, which hits stores next month. [InStyle]
• Emma Watson‘s capsule collection with Alberta Ferretti is now online, in case you need to buy a pair of $360 jean shorts. [People]
• In other denim news? Lelan Zales, the former drummer of George Clinton’s P-Funk All Stars, is launching a line of jeans called Nockauf. They feature “an asymmetric slanting waistband,” but we can’t tell from these photos what that actually means. [WWD]
• The spring Olsenboye campaign — that’s the Olsen twins‘ J.C. Penney line — features a bunch of style bloggers we’ve never heard of and really can’t bring ourselves to particularly care about now that they’re J.C. Penney shills. [WWD]
• Designer Rebecca Minkoff is three months pregnant. [The Cut]
• In other fashion reproductive news, TMZ reported that Rachel Zoe went into labor yesterday. [TooFab]
• Congratulations, Hispanics! You are now a market fashion deems worth targeting, what with your buying power (already at $1 trillion annually) projected to rise to $1.5 trillion by 2015. [WWD]
• Apparently, all men hate leopard print, jumpsuits, socks with high heels, and floral dresses. Ladies, if you ever want to snag a man through fashion, adjust yourselves accordingly. [Telegraph]
• Hervé Leger is selling a $1,050 swimsuit. The care instructions read: “To get the best from your Hervé Léger beachwear we advise you do not wear it in water.” [Racked]