Dov Charney: CEO and Founder of American Apparel

Dov Charney is the CEO and founder of American Apparel. He was born at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. His dad, sister, and half sister were born there as well, and three of his four grandparents have died there. His father, Morris Charney is an architect and his mother, Sylvia Charney is an artist. Dov got his start in Gr. 12 at Choate Rosemary Hall where he was studying his two favourite classes ethics and American History. During that year Charney was importing his T-shirt designs to Montreal.

The Amtrak train between Grand Central Station in New York and Grand Central Station in Montreal, stopped in this small town called Wallingford, Connecticut, at 1:00am on its way Montreal each night. It was on that train that he began to bring bulk quantities of T-shirts to Montreal. He reinforced his sense that American school T-shirts were ionic, unique and in most ways better that the T-shirts that people had access to in Canada.

Dov started running his designs out of his dorm room at Tufts University.

It was then where the T-shirt company took on the trade name “American Apparel”, which he didn’t actually come up with himself. During high school, Dov possessed traits that other students did not which made many teachers and students have a permanent effect on his free-loving personality. Even though he was not able to read and write till he was 13 years old he was an editor of his high school paper and student council president.

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This shows that he is very bold and sticks out in a large crowd.

Morris Charney

His contrarian leadership style, which he feels promotes creativity, has drawn extensive praise and criticism. Charney earned recognition in the media for management decisions to pay a fair wage and refusing to outsource manufacturing. The Los Angeles Times named him one of the top 100 powerful people in Southern California. In 2009, he was nominated as a Time 100 finalist by Time magazine. All above has led him to success because it taught him not to be afraid in what you believe in and to stick to your instincts.

They say that Dov and his corporate directors have screwed up their investments by doing shaddy things. This has led their shareholders to lose a lot of money because they didn’t know how to properly manage a business. American Apparel have been experiencing other problems like having to let off 1,800 experienced manufacturing employees who could not provide legal documentations. It affected the company because it damaged their image, since one of its main selling points is that the garments are “Made in the USA”. He also got charged with sexual harassment.

BUTT magazine was something that Dov did that many people were offended by. He proceeded with BUTT because he did what he felt was right in an art and creative point of view. I personally seen and loved the pictures and layout of the magazine. What Dov Charney can do to help save his company is: 1) Get his financial house in order by not filling their quarterly reports nearly six months later, by courting delisting, and flouting their Securities and Exchange Commission deadlines. 2) Change their ads by using actual models instead of employees and porn stars. ) Revamp everything it sells. 4) Ditch its idiotic hiring policies. And lastly, if the amazing Dov can’t keep his company in order they might as well put him on the sidelines and let someone else manage everything properly. I hope that American Apparel brings their business back in motion because it is one of my favourite stores that inspire me to be who ever I want. Dov’s designs are exactly how I would describe myself fun, out-going, and different.

http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=_b-PW6Rurb0 http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=6DOJxkjOKM8&feature=related By: Dena Koutsogiannis