one being a head-to-toe shot to prove their qualifications for the job. Once hired, employees have to follow a specific dress code while attending work each day. Employees are to be dressed head-to-toe in American Apparel attire and keep themselves prim and proper with natural hair, no piercings, no tattoos, full eyebrows and little to no makeup. Even though these restrictions are in place to keep their workers looking “natural” it sets an immense amount of pressure for young women to conform to standards that society finds to be acceptable and beautiful. Just as hiring is determined by ones looks, so is the firing that is done at American Apparel. In an article by gawker.com called “American Apparel Has a ‘Full Body Head to Toe’ Employment Policy” it was said that in July of 2009, AA CEO Dov Charney made store managers take group photos of their employees so he could personally judge if they were attractive enough to work there. If he found them unattractive, he strongly suggested that they would be fired because he is constantly changing the aesthetics of the company.
Natural beauty seems to be the main goal of this company and they are definitely taking it to a whole new level. Their oversexualized advertisements are proof of just that. Models baring all isn’t a rare thing to come across while flipping through a magazine containing their ads, or even just scrolling through their website. Over the past couple of years many ads that American Apparel has had run on their website have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The ASA in Britain had banned three out of twenty-three ads that were used to advertise tights after receiving complaints about how the company was sexualizing models who appeared to be under the age of sixteen.
AA: OBJEctifying women