4C Interview
Dov Charney Of American Apparel

Dov Charney

American Apparel

Q.    Briefly describe your products and services

DC.   
We’re a vertically integrated manufacturer, designer, distributor and marketer of T Shirts.

Q.    Who are your customers?

DC.   We have two kinds of customers. The T Shirt screen printer market and consumers. Our consumers tend to be young, contemporary urban dwellers. They live in large cities. They’re the next generation adult establishment.

Q.    What cultural trends are affecting your customers and end users?

DC.   There is an emerging population surge in this category. More adults, more customers.

Q.    Sure, but are we seeing differences in this audience because of the surge?
        Look at the tone of your advertising for example – it’s not exactly
        mainstream.

DC.   Our advertising is a reflection of young adult life – the next generation. The surge of young adults in the market place will refresh the social and political approaches much like the late 60s. It’s a new retail arena, a new political arena, a new sexual arena.

What we’ll see is a generational and class conflict between the Boomer Class (adults) and the Echo Boomer Class (teens and 20s). Age will define class. We’re going to see huge shifts in culture. It’s like the late 60s – take, for example, the movie industry and the huge shift from producing Westerns to producing films like the Godfather.

Q.    What other market trends are impacting your business?

DC.   There are no other market trends – it’s all about the consumer. What I do notice is there is a fiber that ties the next generation together. It’s made from the web, cell phones, PDAs and PCs. Young people feel that they belong to a new international community whether you live in Tokyo, Berlin, London or New York

American Apparel

More 4C Interviews

The ‘4C Interview’ is a new regular section on PSFK where we ask senior
execs in a myriad of industries what cultural trends are facing their
business today. If you know of someone who’d like to participate in this column, then email Piers at piers@psfk.com. Thanks.