Dov Charney

Dov Charney (born January 31, 1969) is a Canadian entrepreneur and clothing manufacturer.

Charney was born in Montreal, Quebec on January 31, 1969.

His parents, Morris, an architect, and his mother, Sylvia, an artist of Syrian descent, divorced when he was young.

Charney is a nephew of architect Moshe Safdie.

Charney is dyslexic and was diagnosed with ADD in kindergarten.

He attended Choate Rosemary Hall, a private boarding school in Connecticut and St. George's School of Montreal.

According to Charney, he was heavily influenced by both Montreal culture and his own Jewish heritage.

While attending high school in the United States, Charney began importing Hanes and Fruit of the Loom t-shirts from the U.S. to his friends in Canada.

In an interview with Vice, he described smuggling the shirts on Amtrak trains from New York to Montreal.

Charney began selling t-shirts under the American Apparel name in 1989.

In 1990, he dropped out of Tufts University, borrowed $10,000 from his parents and established American Apparel in South Carolina.

Over the next several years, he spent time learning about manufacturing and wholesale before moving to Los Angeles in the mid-'90s.

By 1997, Charney had moved all manufacturing into a factory located in downtown Los Angeles.

American Apparel products were marketed towards "young metropolitan adults."

The company had about $12 million in sales by 2001.

In 2003, Charney opened the first store in L.A.'s Echo Park neighborhood, followed by one each in New York and Montreal.

Within two years, the company had expanded to Europe and opened 65 new stores.

Legalize LA was an immigration reform campaign conceived by Charney and promoted by American Apparel beginning in 2004.

The campaign featured billboards and full-page ads, as well as t-shirts with the words "Legalize LA."

Proceeds from the sale of the shirts were donated to immigration reform advocacy groups.

The campaign called for the overhaul of immigration laws so as to create a legal path for undocumented workers to gain citizenship in the United States.

By 2006, there were 140 total stores.

In November 2008, after the passing of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages in California, Dov Charney and American Apparel created "Legalize Gay" T-shirts to hand out to protesters at rallies.

The positive reaction led American Apparel to sell the same shirts in stores and online.

In an interview with Vice.tv, Charney spoke out against the poor treatment of fashion workers in developing countries and refers to the practices as "slave labor" and "death trap manufacturing."

Charney proposed a "Global Garment Workers Minimum Wage" and discussed many of the inner workings of the modern fast fashion industry practices that creates dangerous factory conditions and disasters.

Charney's own factories have been heavily scrutinized for labor violations.

In 2009, it expanded to 281 total retail locations, making it "the fastest retail roll-out in American history."

In 2012, the company made headlines when it debuted an ad campaign featuring 62-year-old model Jacky O'Shaughnessy.

In 2014, the company reported record sales of $634 million.

American Apparel under Charney's leadership was known for its simple and provocative ads, which rarely used professional models and whom were often chosen personally by Charney from local hangouts and stores.

He shot many of the advertisements himself and was criticized for featuring models in sexually provocative poses.

The campaigns were also lauded for honesty and lack of airbrushing.

American Apparel again stirred controversy in 2014 when they displayed mannequins with pubic hair in the window of their Lower East Side store.

The company told Elle Magazine:

"American Apparel is a company that celebrates natural beauty, and the Lower East Side Valentine's Day window continues that celebration. We created it to invite passerbys to explore the idea of what is 'sexy' and consider their comfort with the natural female form. This is the same idea behind our advertisements, which avoid many of the photoshopped and airbrushed standards of the fashion industry. So far we have received positive feedback from those that have commented, and we're looking forward to hearing more points of view."

He is the founder of American Apparel, which was one of the largest garment manufacturers in the United States until its bankruptcy in 2015.

Charney was fired from American Apparel due to numerous allegations including sexual harassment, racism, and sexual assault.

Charney subsequently founded Los Angeles Apparel.

In 2020, public health officials ordered the shut-down of Los Angeles Apparel due to "flagrant violations of mandatory public health infection control orders."