American Apparel has a new hiring practice in place that lets them weed out the ugly and out of shape. Apparently, all potential employees are now vetted by an unknown person (or team or people) via photographs emailed in with applications. One photo of the applicant's face and one full body head-to-toe (not sideways) shot. Seems like an awful lot of potential degradation to go through for a job that pays 9(-ish) bucks an hour, doesn't it? Oh, and EEeeeewwwWWW.
Gawker has been doing some investigation into American Apparel since it caught wind of AA's new hiring policy which requires every applicant to be photographed by an employee, who is then to email the photos to work@americanapparel.net from a personal email account, not the company's computers. The photos, according the source, are more important in the hiring process than the applications that come along with them. Sources say that the most attractive applicants are hired and promoted more quickly than less attractive ones.
American
Apparel is known for their company policy to use employees as their
models. Charming, no?
American Apparel has released a statement saying that they do this to make sure that the employees are fashionable and representing the clothing in a cool way to the customers. Which kind of makes sense, so, okay, I'll buy that… but then when past employees and other people start saying things like their manager referred to unattractive applicants as "off-brand" and are given instructions on what kind of black women they want hired? Well, now that smacks of all kinds of discrimination, now doesn't it? 
The stories they are getting read like some kind of catty-modeling-agency-tv-show-nightmare. When one employee's friend was denied via an email back from the photo auditor (a favored model of Dov Charney's, the pervy CEO of AA) that stated "Her hair is bad, and I think that I can see a nose piercing. Also,
she's not wearing our best styles. She will not be considered." When asked to take another look at the friend, the employee recieved this response, "It's not a matter of change, its a matter of taste. We are looking
for fashion leaders, not fashion laggers." Meeow!
It is also company practice to police the employee's appearances at every store, according to this former employee, "Not only did they police our clothes but our eyebrows, makeup, nails and
hair color. They also openly mocked employees by posting photos of them
online." And they would be judged on a weekly basis. Fun! Where do I sign?
The most egregious anecdotal information they received, in my opinion, however, came from a former AA manager who recalled being informed as to what kind of black women should be scouted for employement in a company open call to herself and another manager. "[...]none of the trashy kind that come in, we don't want that. we're not
trying to sell our clothes to them. try to find some of these classy
black girls, with nice hair, you know?"
OH-EM-EFFING-GEE. I can't … I want to … I don't even know where to start with that. Except to say that I will never shop at an Apparel Store nor allow any of my children to. Go and read the full stories here and here to decide for yourself.
And one more thing: Seriously, who would work a minimal wage retail job
like this for a guy that looks like this?!
at-xid-6a00d8341c5d9653ef0133f0caee1c970b " src="http://cdn2.mamapop.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/6a00d8341c5d9653ef0133f0caee1c970b.jpg" style="margin: 0pt auto; display: block;" title="American-apparel-ad-3" />You can see his peen!!! EEEEWWW! And he looks like he should be on several states' most wanted lists. Gah.
And in case you need reminding of how skeevy this company's ads are, let me remind you:
About TwoBusy
