Why does american apparel cost so much

Editions Quartz. More from Quartz About Quartz. Follow Quartz. These are some of our most ambitious editorial projects. From our Obsession. By Marc Bain Fashion reporter. Published August 9, Last updated on August 11, This article is more than 2 years old.

And indeed, Schneider has emphasized in recent months that producing in the U. Over the past several years, though, declining sales have made it difficult to keep production costs in line with revenues, and the company appears to see downscaling of production as part of the solution, at least in the short term.

This is suggested not only by the ongoing layoffs, but by reported changes to staffing procedures. Nativo Lopez, of Hermandad Mexicana, told me that while management says that twelve dollars an hour is the average rate for workers, the real average has dropped closer to nine dollars an hour, as employees are being given less material to produce and told to avoid accelerating production, thereby eliminating their usual production bonuses.

A production worker named Piedad Torres told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month that she now earns half as much as she did a year ago. I asked Lopez how American Apparel might increase its sales, given that its products can be double the price of those made by competitors.

His answer spoke to consumer habits. Buying something made in the U. This change might not come easily: the move to overseas labor during the sweatshop boom of the nineteen-nineties has meant that U. Today, typical Americans buy about sixty-eight items a year, paying 3. Were American Apparel to fail, or to move production overseas alongside its competitors, it could be taken as further evidence of the impracticability of manufacturing apparel in countries with strong labor laws.

The challenge for American Apparel will be no less great: they will, once again, have to succeed in convincing fashion consumers that there can be value in paying a bit more for a bit less. By Amy Merrick.

AA was the unofficial uniform of this hipster nightlife scene, and at one point, the bench outside of the American Apparel in the LES even became a late-night scene in and of itself.

From pre-Instagram hipster influencers like the Misshapes and Cory Kennedy, to the era's coolest indie bands and DJs, it was a time when looking cool didn't have to cost a lot of money.

In fact, it was almost cooler to look like you didn't have money kinda like how people drank PBR. But I digress. There were definitely some operational problems and issues with boundaries to put it lightly , but AA represented so much more than a basics brand, and it bums me out that its potential will never be realized.

Now, 10 years after I arrived in NYC, unable to remember the last time I cared about being part of a "scene," I'm listening to this incredibly interesting podcast about Charney and glad that he's starting over with a new basics line that I'm hopefully not too old to wear. Going to school at the University of Florida, I wasn't perhaps as cool as some of my co-workers who were acutely aware of the Cobrasnake-shot, American Apparel-wearing "scene" happening in New York City.

What I was aware of, however, were mainstream pop-punk-emo bands. I hung posters of Fall Out Boy and Panic! These boys had such deep feelings, and that guyliner! I soaked up all the information I could gather on these crews of emo kids — and the girls who loved them, dubbed "Scene Queens" by the denizens of LiveJournal and MySpace.

From my apartment in Gainesville, it looked like these girls had it all: Dreamy scene boys it was , please let me have this , all-access passes to the best tours, and the coolest clothes. I wasn't brave enough to dye my hair bubblegum pink like Audrey Kitching , or to pierce my nose like Hanna Beth, but the Scene Queens loved to shop at American Apparel — and that, that I could do.

Each time, I would chicken out, buying a simple V-neck tee or stocking up on those elastic headbands they had in every color which found a new life in my Blair Waldorf phase a year later. Ultimately, I found that I didn't quite have what it takes to be a Scene Queen and I gave up on my fantasy of selling merch at Warped Tour. While walking past AA stores always reminded me fondly of those good times; like the Scene Queens, it seems like American Apparel's 15 minutes is well and truly up.

Pour one out for American Apparel and the scene — but not for my massive crush on Brendon Urie, which will never die. My extremely tepid relationship with American Apparel was most prevalent while in college.

I was in a sorority, and there was a big, bright, airy store in the downtown adjacent to campus. We had a big formal that was literally called "Tacky '80s. I had a lot of friends who were big into its basics — the black leggings, particularly, were all over campus at the time — but I never bought anything even remotely wearable. I was a dumb college kid and American Apparel was cool; and when I absolutely needed hot pink arm warmers, they were there for me.

Which is to say, I've never fallen under American Apparel's marketing spell or entirely enjoyed the experience of shopping there — even before the brand began imploding with scandal. But I do look back on it fondly the same way you would that grimey college bar everyone frequented: We had some good times, but let's never go back there again.