American Apparel founder and former CEO Dov Charney’s Los Angeles Apparel officially opened the doors to its first East Coast store in New York over the weekend.
Located at 480 Broadway, the SoHo flagship marks Los Angeles Apparel’s second-ever door after its South Central Factory Store.
It’s an expansive space of more than 20,000 square feet previously described by the company as a “super store.”
The opening is a milestone for the apparel manufacturer.
Launched in 2016, the business produces most of its inventory at its South Central factory, making everything from socks and underwear to T-shirts, sweatshirts and denim.
It started predominantly in wholesale, selling blanks as market trends shifted to the heavyweight fabrications and garment dye techniques now synonymous with Los Angeles Apparel. Direct-to-consumer came next with an online shop and Factory Store.
The new store will test whether the brand can resonate with New Yorkers the same way it has embedded itself locally in L.A. with its ubiquitous billboards.
American Apparel Blueprint
If anything, history and what American Apparel grew up to be may offer a glimpse at the growth trajectory for Los Angeles Apparel.
Charney’s former firm peaked at nearly 300 stores and revenue of more than $600 million before the business began struggling under the weight of debt and shifting consumer trends.
The board ousted Charney from the company in late 2014, with the former CEO dogged by allegations of sexual harassment. Some of the internal issues were documented in the July Netflix show “Trainwreck: The Cult of American Apparel.”
After Charney’s dismissal, American Apparel cycled through two CEOs in Paula Schneider and Chelsea Grayson. Layoffs and two bankruptcies in October 2015 and February 2016 followed.
That final Chapter 11 led to sportswear conglomerate Gildan Activewear buying the company out of its second bankruptcy in 2017, closing the page on that chapter of American Apparel.
Basics Brand Consolidation
For Gildan, American Apparel was just one in a series of acquisitions that scaled its own business and consolidated many basics manufacturers into its fold.
A year before the American Apparel purchase Gildan paid $110 million for Alstyle Apparel LLC, which makes T-shirts and fleece. Most recently, Gildan announced in August plans to purchase HanesBrands in a deal that valued Hanes at about $4.4 billion.
Gildan, with annual sales of about $3 billion, has a portfolio that includes its namesake brand, Peds, Comfort Colors, GoldToe and American Apparel.
Today, Los Angeles Apparel is one of the few independent basics manufacturers of size in the U.S. Although, it’s different from others in that it’s a brand in its own right, similar to American Apparel, as opposed to simply a supplier.
Currently, AST Sportswear in Brea is the largest vertical apparel manufacturer in the country, a designation it obtained after American Apparel closed its Los Angeles factory post-Gildan acquisition. AST was started in 1995 by the Dadabhoy family, with some of its members still running the business today.
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