Ask Hadley

She can ease your fashion pain

I've been hearing so much fuss about American Apparel in the press but it just looks like a load of brightly coloured stretchy tops and leggings from the photos I've seen. Am I missing the point?
Martha Jones, by email

You're only missing the point, Martha, by failing to comprehend that that is the point. In an era where Terry Christian has been if not exactly desired then at least allowed to appear in front of a camera again, it was inevitable that some teenagers, somewhere, would suddenly think that dressing like Jane Fonda fresh from an aerobics workout would be hilariously original and ironic.

Now, before we continue with our weekly Glenda Slaggyness, I should interject that I did once rather enjoy American Apparel. In fact, whenever I went to the US, it was one of my requisite visiting points, along with the E! channel and Whole Foods. But like them, when American Apparel came to the UK, the magic somehow disappeared. Maybe because that was when the patent leather leggings came out and Johnny Borrell started shopping there.

For those uninitiated in the ways of American Apparel, I shall elucidate. This canny little retailer has filled the gap on the overly patterned British high street for solid, often neon colours in stretchy fabrics, arriving just at a time when teenagers across the land have been collectively seized by the desire to show off as much of their legs as possible before getting gynaecological. If you have ever wanted to wear a cropped top with leather leggings, want no more.

American Apparel is little more than Pineapple for the 21st century. Actually, scratch that. It simply is Pineapple transplanted into the 21st century, replete with all the camel toes and sweaty crotches such clothes imply. Happy days are in the gym again.

Except, these clothes are not just worn in the gym these days, and that is just one of my objections to the label. Anything that encourages teenagers to wear leggings without even a miniskirt to cover their modesty is to be shunned. Another problem I have with it, aside from the aforementioned patent leather leggings and the Borrell factor (and incidentally, American Apparel does attract a most unfortunate celebrity clientele. Honestly, it's worse than Soho House. Remember those obscenely high-cut denim hotpants that Amy Winehouse wore seemingly every day for a year so that by the end you could almost see the crust? Ladies and gentlemen, you, too, can get the look!), is the intention of the retailer, and by "intention" I mean the "look it is trying to go for", and by that, I mean quasi porn.

You look at the clothes and you think, OK, I get it - exercise clothes with extra jazz hands. You look at the adverts and you think, good heavens, why is that poor half-naked teenager lolling about in a crack house, apparently tied up with her leggings? And then you have to think, oh right, it's an advert, and it's funny because I do suddenly feel like spending £23 on a bright pink hooded sweatshirt.

And then you also have to remember that the concept for the adverts came from Dov Charney, the founder of American Apparel, a man who once started masturbating in front of a reporter while describing an alleged "romantic" (I like to think of those quote marks as more sarcastic than ironic) encounter with an employee and claims "slut" is a term of endearment. There has been much praise for American Apparel's ethical practices in terms of manufacturing, but while a ban on sweatshops is welcome, one has to wonder if a factory atmosphere that one former employee described as "makes Animal House look like choir practice" is much of an improvement. Now I ask you, would you trust such a gentleman in matters of taste? No, you would, could and should not.

Why is everyone dressed like a lumberjack these days?
Benji Carsson, by email

Deliverance - it's, like, so very now, don't you think? Particularly that bit when everyone belatedly realises that anyone from the American deep south is a depraved, potentially murderous psychopath. It's very post-Bush era, don't you think?

Well, it must be, because button-down tartan shirts are literally everywhere these days. Honestly, look out of the window right now: probably even the birds and the trees are wearing, respectively, very small and gigantically enormous button-down tartan shirts. Why? Sheesh, Benji, did you not get the memo? Several times a year a golden memo is sent out by the High Hat of Haute, instructing all the people who matter about what they should suddenly and collectively wear for the next three months before instantly swapping over to safari hats, say, or bright yellow shoe laces. You didn't get it? But they sent it to all the people who . . . Oh, I see. Goodbye, Benji.

Today's best video

  • Oscars Fashion Interactive

  • The NSA files trailblock image


Today in pictures

More from Ask Hadley

Hadley Freeman answers all your sartorial questions