After letting founder and CEO Dov Charney go for good late last year, American Apparel appointed a new CEO to try and right the ship. In what may be a surprise, it was a woman, Paula Schneider, and now she's going to work on rebranding the company to something that, you know, it's skeevy and gross and perverted. The first step in doing that? Giving an exclusive interview to perhaps the least controversial fashion magazine, Marie Claire.
She quickly mentions the basic plans for the brand and also celebrates the legend Brendan Jordan. She wants to make sure that AA stays the "cool brand it always has been." The sentiment of the statement is correct, but American Apparel's "cool" status has sort of gone out the window in recent years. Once again, that skeeve factor. How does her being a woman influence the image of the company? She doesn't think it does, though it feels like a bit of a deflection from the question, but she wants to shine the light on all the great things AA is doing and has done for women. How about those ads? Is she going to get rid of the softcore porn we've come to expect? At least for lingerie, no. But it does sound like most of the ads will be tamer in the near future. Overall, it doesn't seem like too much is changing on the image front, but Schneider wants to make the business profitable again. Without a new or drastically altered look, will that even be possible?
