American Apparel – Socially Sustainable and Hip
- American Apparel’s Helvetica T turns a garment that might otherwise have gone to waste into a wearable conversation piece.
Organic? Yeah, sure. But there’s more to sustainable than just organic. Hip clothing manufacturer American Apparel offers organic as well as conventional cotton T-shits, underwear, and other classics. It’s the structure of the business, though, that separates them from the crowd and merits a closer look.
Located in the midst of downtown LA’s hustle and bustle, American Apparel’s 800,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility (the largest in the U.S.) takes advantage of a unique business model in the textile industry – vertical integration. That means they don’t outsource anything. The entire process of clothing production – from design to dyeing and knitting to sewing, and even marketing and distribution – is handled in one localized area.
How is this sustainable? Well, when items being transporting from one stage of production to the next have only to cross the factory floor instead of being trucked to a factory in a different region, it saves a tremendous amount of fuel. Also, because of economy of scale, maintaining a large facility uses fewer natural resources per square foot than multiple small ones. (Due to stellar growth, American Apparel does have more than one facility, but they’re all located in the LA area.)
This tightly-knit organization also allows the company to make innovative use of articles that might otherwise go to waste. For instance, garments with small but interesting imperfections challenge their designers to come up with unique and appealing solutions – like the Helvetica Alphabet T-Shirt.
But it’s in the area of social sustainability that American Apparel shines. Dedicated to providing their workers a living wage, the company boasts the highest-paid workforce in the industry. They’re truly the Anti-Sweatshop! The company also maintains an active interest in immigration policy reform and gay and lesbian rights.
American Apparel features clothing that is functional, classically American, sometimes whimsical, and definitely cool. And the best part? You can sport their duds and not just look great, but feel good about supporting an all-American company that treats its workers right!
