If there was ever a study of Los Angeles apparel industry comebacks, Dov Charney’s story would be the lead.
The American Apparel and Los Angeles Apparel founder has been steadily re-growing a contemporary basics brand out of South Central after losing control of his former firm. With Los Angeles Apparel’s rapid growth, it’s clear American Apparel provided a roadmap for Charney to come out of the gate swinging with Los Angeles Apparel. The brand has grown on an accelerated timeline based on the lessons learned from Charney’s previous business, American Apparel, which was at one time publicly traded and peaked at over $630 million in sales in 2013.
Los Angeles Apparel is set to open its SoHo summer pop-up shop at 480 Broadway and Broome Street. The store places the company near Madewell, Zara, Bloomingdale’s, Brandy Melville and Balthazar.
The door marks the company’s first try at retail on the East Coast.
Los Angeles Apparel will make a splash with an over 20,000-square-foot space in what the company described as a “super store.”
A Los Angeles Brand
Los Angeles Apparel – which sells T-shirts, sweatshirts, pants, denim and accessories for men, women and kids – was built on similar concepts as American Apparel. That is, living wages (with employees averaging $20 an hour) and sustainable production. Los Angeles Apparel sources its yarns and textiles domestically, while producing most of its pieces in South Central.
It started in 2016 just outside of downtown Los Angeles as a wholesale business, most notably leading the trend toward heavyweight, 14-ounce fleece crewnecks, T-shirts and other basics in muted garment-dye colors that was adopted by streetwear and fashion brands.
The business then dipped back into direct-to-consumer with its online shop and Factory Store at its South Central headquarters on 59th Street.
Nearly a decade in and the business – which began with Charney posting photos to Instagram with the tag line “That’s Los Angeles – employs well over 1,500 people.
Whether Charney has interest in raising money through the public markets again is unclear.
The Competition
In the meantime, Charney’s former business in American Apparel, which is now owned by Gildan Activewear, has continued to trade off the shell of a brand no longer helmed by its founder or any veterans of the business. The lack of competition has left plenty of runway for Los Angeles Apparel, clearly.
Gildan, which bought American Apparel out of bankruptcy in 2017, vacated the company’s Arts District factory – once a defining part of the brand and downtown Los Angeles skyline – and has since moved manufacturing overseas.
The Montreal-based company doesn’t break out the performance of its brand portfolio, which also includes Champion and Goldtoe. However, the company did say American Apparel’s business was up in the double digits in the most recently ended quarter. Gildan net sales in the first quarter were up 2.3 percent to $712 million. The activewear segment, of which American Apparel is included, rose 9 percent to $647 million.
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