Versteckt Eure Toechter!
Translation: Hide your daughters. American Apparel has recently opened its first kids store in Berlin.
Why Germany for this milestone?
“This neighborhood in Berlin is an area where an internationally diverse culture and the arts have mixed with a boom in new families to create a very unique [emphasis added] place for raising children. It has some of the most vibrant public parks and playgrounds we’ve seen and was at the top of our list of places to test out an American Apparel Kids store,” American Apparel creative director Marsha Brady said in a statement. (Unrelated: Germany’s age of consent, at 14 years, is among the lowest in Europe. Also: the creative director’s name apparently really is Marsha Brady.)
The kid models used in AA’s ad campaign for crew neck sweaters, one-pieces and “shiny leggings” (?) are, according to the press release, the offspring of American Apparel employees.
AA’s sweatshop-free mandate and ballsy (if self-serving) Legalize L.A. and Legalize Gay campaigns are some of the best examples of corporate cajones in recent memory. But here’s an oogy image for you: A grade-school aged girl, perhaps a would-be future scientist, who instead looks into the mirror of an American Apparel dressing room and says to herself, Maybe someday I can roll around in white linens wearing nothing but tangerine tights and my O-face while some guy with ironic facial hair snaps away greedily with his Nikon.
The kiddie apparel itself isn’t particularly objectionable–just shrunken versions of some of the brand’s staples. And perhaps it’s a good thing it’s now being sold in a freestanding, G-rated store, lest you feel like you’re shopping for onsies with your tot at Spearmint Rhino. — Krista Jennings
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