Didn't American Apparel get busted for illegals a few years back!?! Did I miss something here?

American Apparel is dead. Done. Over. (Thank God)
Katrina Onstad
From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Oct. 07, 2010 3:30PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Oct. 08, 2010 8:48AM EDT


A Polaroid of a dead-eyed young woman in undies and tube socks on a dirty tousled bed isn’t usually an emblem of social justice. The peace dove doesn’t get photographed like that.

Yet for nearly a decade, American Apparel has merged such DIY-porn images in its ads with an anti-sweatshop, corporate-responsibility ethos. Luckily for those whose exploding heads cannot contain this much contradiction, American Apparel may be dying.

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The retailer, which runs the biggest garment factory in the U.S. and has 285 stores in 200 countries, saw its debt load escalate to $120.3-million earlier this year. Sales are declining and the company was granted an extension until November 15 to file financial results and avoid being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange.

But even if American Apparel climbs back from the financial brink, it’s already a cultural corpse. Over the past decade, the brand’s ethical credentials receded as its aesthetic fell in step with the ickiest trends of the new millennium: a spandex-lined gutter for slumming Ã* la Girls Gone Wild, Britney Spears and reality TV hot-tub parties. As comedian Amy Poehler, talking about American Apparel ads, told Bust magazine: “Look, I love beautiful girls, too. I think everyone should be free to have their knee socks and their sweaty shorts, but I’m over it. … I’m over the girl that’s tired and freezing and hungry.â€