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American Apparel Disses Nancy Upton
You may have heard of Nancy Upton -- a size 12 woman who entered American Apparel's search for "The Next Big Thing" model contest with a series of tongue-in-cheek photographs of herself gorging on pie, fried chicken, and ranch dressing while clad in her underwear. As Upton had suspected might happen, the company has refused to hire her to model even though she won the popular vote, and sent a rather dismissive and defensive e-mail informing her of this.
American Apparel's icky and objectifying call for submissions read, in part: "We're looking for fresh faces (and curvaceous bods) to fill these babies out. If you think you've got what it takes to be the next XLent model, send us photos of you and your junk to back it up."
There were numerous problems with the campaign, including, perhaps, the insistence that a size 12-14 woman is "big" or "plus-size" in a country where the average woman is a size 14. However, the company response, penned by Iris Alonzo, one of the American Apparel employees who conceptualized the publicity stunt, manages to ignore most of these.
Perhaps in claiming flatly that there isn't "demand" for larger women's clothes from American Apparel, the company should consider why there isn't such demand, given that more than 50% of American women wear a size 16 or larger. The claim to offer a 3X may be true for some men's garments, but AA has been notoriously hesitant to offer larger women's clothes, to the point that plus-size erotic performer and all-around badass April Flores was once told "That's not our demographic" in response to a wholesale query about larger-size items.
While it may be great that AA is going to make one more size, the level of bragging they’re doing about such a minimal increase in addressing body diversity is a bit equivalent to a department store boasting about getting central air in 1972 — it’s the kind of boast that makes consumers scratch their heads and say, “Hey, I thought we were here already.”
It is odd to consider how AA assesses “demand” for sizes. Companies like Forever 21 and JCPenney are succeeding specifically because they offer a wider range of women’s sizes. Has it occurred to Alonzo and her colleagues at AA that the reason they don’t hear more “demand” is that most female consumers — average-sized to plus-sized — don’t bother to contact AA anymore, because they did once years ago and were met with canned or no responses? Or, perhaps, women just look at the AA ads, or their size chart, and just assume AA has no interest in selling to them, and so do the capitalist equivalent of giving them the finger and take their money elsewhere?
Many female consumers do not bother with American Apparel because American Apparel does not bother with them. Understandably, they would rather spend their time with people and companies who give a damn about serving their needs than banging on doors begging from a corporation that has shown, time and time again, that it doesn't care to. The response from American Apparel indicates that they feel attacked by Upton and supporters; it is a counterattack.
If AA is struggling -- and the company definitely seems to be -- perhaps it's because they insist on selling clothes that fit the women they wish there were rather than the women that are, and there's no amount of fantasizing that can make consumers materialize.
More hilarious, sexy photos and more information are available at Upton's Tumblr. Photos by Shannon Skloss/courtesy Nancy Upton.
