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Staff post about: Dov Charney Become an Author

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Charney typically schedules all his appointments for the day between 11:30 to 12:30. He also, however, does not rise until almost noon. Charney has no personal assistants, does not own a Blackberry, and sees little use in checking his voicemail. He lives in a modest house and drinks instant coffee on his way to work. Charney may not be your conventional CEO, but according to him, that is precisely the reason he has been able to become so successful. After all, the creative entrepreneur does not live by the conventions of others.

Charney fosters an unconventional work environment. He encourages communication between all levels of staff at any time of the day. That means that any seamstress can walk into the boss’ office whenever he or she wants to talk about an issue. He decorates his stores with covers of old soft-porn magazines and pictures of amateur models in American Apparel clothes. He curses while at work and lets his employees curse too. Charney is open about his fondness for having consensual relationships with his staff, and does not mind if they engage in relationships with each other either, even at work “provided they’re in a private setting and no one else is aware of it and they’re on their break.”

“We plan to continue to behave in a contrarian matter,” Charney says. “This creative environment is what got us to this point. We certainly aren’t going to stop doing it now after we created a highly profitable company.”

One day, as Charney was riding along in his limo, he spotted an attractive and stylish girl on the street. He immediately told the driver to stop, jumped out of the limo, and asked this girl to model for his company. Natasha is now an employee at American Apparel. All of the company’s models are amateurs, and have included the likes of Charney’s housekeeper and even Charney himself, who posed for an American Apparel advertisement baring his entire backside.

But Charney’s creative ways have often gotten him into trouble. He has been the target of numerous lawsuits by female employees, one of which accuses Charney of making “unwelcome, inappropriate comments, suggestive nonverbal signals…dropping his pants, revealing his underwear.” Charney denies the allegations, although he defends the right to wear only underwear in the office, saying, “I think for a designer to be in his underwear when he's designing underwear is quite common. And I'm in my underwear in my office all the time.” He adds, “I frequently drop my pants to show people my new product.”

Despite the charges, Charney is determined to stay the course. As he sees it, if his company is going to continue to be creative and represent an unconventional and hip youth culture, it must refuse to change its rebel ways.

“I've made mistakes. There are bumps in the road to what I'm doing,” says Charney. “I should tone down? So I don't get in trouble? It's fascism. You're asking me to succumb to tyranny.”

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