Observer » Dov Charney

The Tell-All of Dov Charney and Tucker Max? All Part of Ryan Holiday’s Media Strategy

Emily Witt — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:58:56 -0400

Charney tell-all or a pack of lies?

Yesterday Gawker, Galley Cat and other sites reported that Ryan Holiday, the marketing strategist, got a major book deal for a tell-all about his clients, including American Apparel founder Dov Charney and writer and professional bigot Tucker Max. Called Confessions of a Media Hit Man, the book sold to Penguin's business imprint, Portfolio. "Major" usually implies it sold for at least $500,000. Well, we will save Mr. Holiday from confessing one aspect of his strategy. A book editor sent us a copy of Mr. Holiday's proposal, which contains the following tactical outline:

The Press Release
The press release announcing the sale of this book is the perfect opportunity to create a compelling yet fake spectacle about the book. Relying on the fact that blogs and media outlets simply take for granted whatever is stated in a release, we will state in the press release that the advance given for this book was a spectacular sum. Blogs covering publishing and media will instantly pick up on the fact that a first time author was paid such an exorbitant amount. Combined with Ryan's experience working with bestselling authors, this will immediately put the book on the radar of the media elites. That the information is all fake and part of a social experiment will be revealed later in the book itself—as evidence of the gullibility of the web and proof of concept.

You got them Mr. Holiday! Here's more about his plans:

Fake Leaked Chapters
Once the market is seeded with the "newsworthiness" of the project, we will begin a whisper campaign that Confessions of a Media Hit Man is actually a tell-all about tabloid targets Dov Charney and Tucker Max. This can be accomplished through a combination of anonymous and unnamed tips to gossip blogs with which Ryan already has relationships. Having created the impression that this book is both high profile—Implied by the dazzling advance—and full of insider secrets, we will leak entirely fabricated excerpts and chapters to various blogs claiming they were "too controversial" for the publisher to allow for publication. Again, this will be revealed later as proof of concept to the media outlet of our choice. The revelation will be a bombshell and cement Confessions of a Media Hit Man as a media sensation.

Zing! The headline at Gawker: "Tucker Max and Dov Charney, Together in a Single Book". And just in case the book comes out and Nick Denton and Business Insider get mentions in its pages, that is intentional too:

Court Attention At All Costs
In a nod to the hip hop tradition of up-and-coming rappers attacking bigger acts in mix tapes and seeing their profile raised by the inevitable response, Confessions of a Media Hit Man will use the sensitive egos of bloggers against themselves. Previous books in this category have leveled only vague and condescending criticism of blogs. Why would blogs bother to respond to that? How could they? This book levels direct charges and serious accusations of wrong doing. It names names. Those names make up some of the biggest and highly trafficked sites on the web: Politico, Jeff Jarvis, TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, Ariana Huffington, Mashable, Gawker, Business Insider, Nick Denton and others. Each one of these names will be surreptitiously notified of these embarrassing revelations in advance and baited into responding. So will their competitors. We can expect their angry reactions and protests to drive serious attention and awareness of the book. As PT Barnum would court negative reviews and manufacture his own scandals—any press was good press as long as it spelled his name right and gave the time and date of his show—this book launch will deliberately generate denunciations from the blogging elite.

Portfolio did not immediately reply to our request for comment, but one hazard of reporting book advances is that publishers and agents will almost never confirm the sum. Mr. Holiday's agent, Stephen Hanselman, seems to specialize in unabashed self-promoters: his biggest client is self-help guru Timothy Ferriss.

American Apparel Adds Ex-Blockbuster CFO in Attempt at Making Profit

Nate Freeman — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:48:39 -0400

After months of sliding revenue, American Apparel has snatched former Blockbuster CFO Thomas Casey and placed him in charge of reviving the company's profits, Bloomberg says. Casey will step into the role of acting president, and report to CEO Dov Charney.

The last year has not been kind to the clothing company, which is notoriously linked to hipsters and known for its distinctive racy billboards. They were nearly delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after failing to file quarterly earnings and a preliminary report cited losses between $5 million and $7 million for the second quarter of 2010. By hiring Casey, American Apparel hopes to avoid declaring bankruptcy.

The former Blockbuster CFO resigned his position in August, before the once-mighty video rental store went bust.

American Apparel Sued by Shareholders

Steve Huff — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:56:27 -0400

American Apparel is heading straight for its own hip and self-consciously sexy/sloppy Gotterdammerung at a clip with a shareholder's lawsuit just filed against the company in Los Angeles. Shareholders claim Dov Charney and several members of his board of directors committed acts of mismanagement, misled them and damaged the company image in general. The plaintiffs in this case also note the massive crash in American Apparel share prices, from $16.80 in 2007 down to $1.03 a share at the close of business Tuesday. Other problems listed in the complaint:

American Apparel laid off 1,800 employees who couldn't produce the proper papers when the feds began an immigration investigation, seriously damaging its manufacturing output.
Deloitte & Touche has stated that American Apparel didn't control accounting and financial practices for the last two years. Deloitte broke with American Apparel last July because it doubted "the reliability of American Apparel's 2009 financial statements."
Dov Charney's baby hasn't filed any financial statements for two quarters and is about to be delisted from the NYSE.

Shareholders are looking for control over at least 3 seats on the board, damages and other corporate reforms.

All of this is on top of the multiple lawsuits already pending against Dov Charney for sexual harassment. As Reuters reported yesterday, American Apparel "may not have sufficient liquidity to continue to operate through next year."

[CN]

Portfolio’s Dov Charney Issue Not a Hit on the Newsstand

John Koblin — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:27:47 -0400

Back in November when Portfolio put American Apparel CEO Dov Charney on its cover instead of a cover that addressed the then-imploding financial world, it left us scratching our heads.

If the decision was a cosmetic one—the logic being that a sultry image of Dov Charney lying on a couch would do better on the newsstand than an abstract image to sybolize the financial crisis—it didn't work.

The November issue sold 19,000 copies on the newsstand, the same as Portfolio's previous two issues in October and September, where Toll Brothers CEO Bob Toll and Jeff Zucker were on the cover, respectively, according to the ABC Rapid Report. The magazine did better with its summer issues: The August cover, of Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, sold 23,000 issues, and the July cover, of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, sold 28,000 copies.

We imagine the December/January issue, which finally confronted the business world's 9/11 with a Michael Lewis cover story, should draw the best off the newsstand this year.

Morning Memo: Anne Hathaway’s Ex Isn’t Enjoying Jail; Tom Colicchio Likes to Watch Himself; Paula Abdul’s Stalker OD’s

Caroline Bankoff — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:36:14 -0400

Anne Hathaway's ex, Raffaello Follieri, can't deal with the rigors of jail, according to a letter his lawyer sent to his sentencing judge last week. [NYP]

Craftsteak (owned by Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio) showed the premiere episode of Top Chef New York last night, and everyone was surprised to see Mr. Coliccho and fellow judge Gail Simmons in the regular dining room with the rest of the hoi-polloi. [Eater]

Paula Godspeed, a former American Idol contestant and obsessed Paula Abdul fan, committed suicide near the singer's home yesterday. [NYDN]

Eco-friendly mega-club Greenhouse is off to a rough start. [Down By The Hipster]

Cendant Corp. founder Henry Silverman is leaving his wife of 30 years, Nancy, for a 28-year-old woman he met at Starbucks. [P6]

Fashion Roundup: Diane von Furstenberg’s New Blog; Dov Charney Sued Again; Small Boutiques Feel the Economic Pressure

Irina Aleksander — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:10:17 -0400

Diane von Furstenberg is launching a blog tomorrow called Inside DVF on her website DVF.com that will include news, images of new items, horoscopes, and "cultural advice," as well as posts by Ms. Furstenberg herself. [Fashionista]

American Apparel CEO Dov Charney is being sued again, this time by a former employee who says he was pressured to fix the books by Mr. Charney so that the company appeared to be doing better than it was and could attract investors. [NYP]

Helpful guidelines for the Comme des Garcons sale at H&M tomorrow! [Racked]

In an unstable economy, independently owned boutiques are having to pay up front for designer shipments with credit cards in order to be able to stock their stores. [WSJ]

Thom Browne is putting on his first European show as the guest designer at Florence's bi-annual trade show, Pitti Uomo, in January, where Ms. Furstenberg showed last year. [Vogue UK]

Why in the World is Dov Charney on the Cover of Portfolio?

John Koblin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:12:10 -0400

At a moment when the market is crashing and we're still trying to make sense of why the Dow goes up 900 points one day and down 700 another, when The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal cover the crisis on their front pages daily, and a once-in-a-lifetime story lands in your lap, is there a monthly magazine better positioned than Portfolio to break this story down?

The Condé Nast business magazine has been publishing for 18 months, and those rocky staffing issues have—for the most part—been put to bed.

So, now it's game time! Lehman Brothers went down a month ago, the story hasn't stopped for a second, and there has been plenty of time to flood the zone.

So, what's the November cover story?

A profile of Dov Charney, the American Apparel chief, by Claire Hoffman, a writer who seems to be the Boswell of sexed-up executives.

It's an understatement to say that it’s perplexing that the magazine would so willfully ignore the crisis with its cover story. That's a charitable assessment of the November issue; a less generous one is to call it the biggest blunder in the magazine’s 18-month history.

This would be the case even we hadn't read about Dov Charney many times before.

Joanne Lipman, the magazine's editor, said that Dov Charney graces the cover because of the brisk business American Apparel did in the third quarter 2008, and because of his importance to the presidential election.

"American Apparel is a huge retail story," said Ms. Lipman in an e-mailed statement sent through a Portfolio spokeswoman. "Its sales are up 24% for the 3rd quarter at a time when the entire retail industry is in deep decline‹ plus Dov Charney (the owner) is out there on the eve of the biggest election in decades talking provocatively about the immigration issue."

The spokeswoman said that the cover decision belongs to Ms. Lipman.

Ms. Lipman continues in the email: "The bulk of the inside of the magazine is about the financial crisis, including three major pieces by Jesse Eisinger and John Cassidy, including the definitive piece on the 'patient zero' of the crisis, the JP Morgan team that invented credit default swaps."

Actually, the bulk of the inside of the magazine isn't about the financial crisis.

In the November issue, there are three pieces pegged to the crisis: Two by Mr. Eisinger, and one by Mr. Cassidy. In total, they add up to roughly 6,600 words.

The Dov Charney profile alone is 6,000 words, not including the roughly 22,000 other words published that include a profile of billionaire David Koch, a two-page spread on James Bond and an 11-page spread ranking which billionaires have donated the most to charitable causes.

Ms. Lipman also said her statement, "We've been ahead of the crisis for more than a year."

Which is true. The magazine ran a piece last May by Jesse Eisinger called, "The $300 Trillion Time Bomb" that was one of the earliest pieces that predicted the dangers of credit default swaps.

But does that give the magazine a pass?

In her editors' letter this month, you get the impression that's how Ms. Lipman feels:

When historians study the Wall Street crisis of 2008, they’ll ask, How did this happen? In the immediate aftermath of the banking meltdown, a sense of shock was on ostentatious display...Give us a break. It’s infuriating to see people who should know better expressing surprise. This train was coming for well over a year. Wall Street and regulators should have seen it coming. Condé Nast Portfolio readers certainly did.

Woody Allen Took The Money And Ran

Matt Haber — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:57:59 -0400

By now you've probably heard that Woody Allen is suing American Apparel for damages in excess of $10 million for using his likeness in a billboard. Reuters quotes the lawsuit as stating, "Allen does not engage in the commercial endorsement of products or services in the United States."

That wasn't always the case.

On his 1979 album, Standup Comic, Allen does a routine called "The Vodka Ad," which goes, in part, "I was caught here in an ethical crisis. Should I advertise a product that I don't actually use? It's a problem 'cause I'm not a drinker, my body won't tolerate...eh...spirits."

Tolerance or no, Allen appeared in three ads for Smirnoff Vodka, but as Scott Marks' blog, Emulsion Compulsion notes, the director "hasn’t been a pitchman for products or services in the United States in decades." Hey, Woody, here's mud in your eye:

Come Out Of Your Shell... Try Smirnoff

This Is The Drink That Is... The Smirnoff Mule

Get a Few Mugs Together And Give a Smirnoff Mule Party

American Apparel Opens Final NYC Store. For Now.

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:42:10 -0400

More bright lights in the big city.

At 3:04 p.m. on Wednesday, employees of trendy L.A.-based clothier American Apparel emerged from the brightly illuminated storefront at 142 Fifth Avenue, clapping and cheering to the beat of loud pop music blaring in the background.

One clerk carried a bullhorn. "We're open! Finally!" announced the amplified black-clad lad named Jonny, who further identified himself as company founder and CEO Dov Charney's illegitimate lovechild. (The Observer does not confirm nor deny that claim.)

For days, passersby would stop to glimpse inside the partially unveiled storefront at racks of tees, hoodies and undies, as well as the company's trademark posters of employees in provocative poses. One posterior shot, visible from the location's expansive 19th Street side, demonstrates the snug fit of the company's cotton spandex jersey tank thong.

The Observer spotted former Cars frontman Ric Ocasek sneaking a peek through the window around 1:05 p.m. today.

The approximately 5,000-square-foot store -- which operations manager Max Sugiura described as "a much cleaner version" of the national retailer's usual layout -- is the company's 15th location in Manhattan and Brooklyn in just three years. (See our previous coverage here and here.)

Its increasing ubiquitousness has created some critics, particularly given that this latest store replaced much-beloved Weiss & Mahoney.

Good thing, then, that the sprawling franchise is now looking to slow things down a bit.

"This will be our last store in New York," said Sugiura, "for a while."

- Chris Shott

Style Index

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:11:32 -0400

The Medium is the MASSAGE, by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore

Annotated index for And You Thought Abercrombie & Fitch Was Pushing It?, by Jaime Wolf, The New York Times Magazine, April 23, 2006.

A
Abercrombie & Fitch (clothing manufacturer), 58
Adbusters (magazine), 61
Adult Video News (a/k/a AVN), 61
Allen, Woody (director), 63 (See: Hannah and Her Sisters)
Alonzo, Iris, American Apparel creative partner, 62
American commodity manufacturing, Charney fixation on, 62
American Apparel, 58-63
Araki, Nobuyoshi (photographer), 60; 63
Asymmetrical features, 60 (see also: ethnic, mixed-race, imperfect bodies, blemished skin, and visible sweat stains)

B
Baby Boomers, 62; 63
Bare chest, Dov Charney's, sometimes visible in American Apparel ads, 61
Benetton (retailer), multiculturalism of, 63
Blogosphere, location for advertising, 60
Brady, Marsha (supervisor of décor), 62
Broadband venture, 60
Burlington, VT, 60

C
Canada, as birthplace of Marshall McLuhan, 60
Chanaye, 18-year-old self-professed hippie of Afro-Cuban descent, 60
Charney, Dov, 58-63
Chicago (Illinois), location of sexual harassment suit against Charney, 63
Concise 48 Laws of Power, The (author, Robert Greene), 60
Consumerism, yoked to political gestures and activism, 61 (see: Political gestures)
Cwir, Weronika, law school drop-out, American Apparel theorist, 63

D
Dawson's Creek (TV series), 60
Dixon, Willie (blues songwriter), 61

E
Echo Park (Los Angeles), location of American Apparel store, 60; as home of Dov Charney, 60 (see: Lower East Side)
Email, photographs sent via, 62; input through, 62
Eisenhower, generation of, 62

F
Fantastic Man (obscure art-hipster publication), 61
Fonda, Jane (actress), enlarged photo of, 63
Florida, location of Charney's childhood vacations, 62
Frankfurt (Germany), location of American Apparel store, 60
Fruit of the Loom (brand), 62

G
Gap, model for American Apparal, 60; Gap, rules of, 60; Gap, standards of sandblasted, bland notion of good-looking young Americans, 60
Gawker.com, pop-culture site, 60
Girl Next Door, The, 61
Girls Gone Wild, stupidly raunchy phenomenon, 61
Goldin, Nan (photographer), 63

H
Hannah and Her Sisters, 80s film, 63 (See: Woody Allen)
Hanes (brand), 62; 63
Hefner, Hugh (publisher), Charney reminiscent of, 61; expanded definition of sexuality of, 61; Sexual relationships with employees of, 61; Subtlety of, 61
Henley shirt, origins of, 62
Hepburn, Audrey, 62
Hilton, Paris, 61
Hollywood, standards of glamour of, 61

I
Instant-messaging, input through, 62

J
Jacques-Charley, pet project of Charney and Alonzo, 63; French pronunciation of, 63 (See: Zhac-Sharlee)
Jane (magazine), revealing profile of Charney in, 63 (see: Claudine Ko)
Job definitions, fluidity of in American Apparel, 62

K
Knits, clingy, 60
Ko, Claudine (magazine writer), revealing profile of Charney written by, 63
Kuczynski, Alex (reporter), 60

L
L.A. Weekly (alternative newspaper), 61
Levi's 501's, iconic, 62
London (England), location of American Apparel store, 60
Los Angeles, location of American Apparel store, 60; location of sexual harassment suit against Charney, 63
Lower East Side (New York), location of American Apparel store, 60; 62; as home of Dov Charney, 60 (See: Echo Park)

M
Makeup, unacceptability in American Apparel ads, 62
McLuhan, Marshall, 60
Mexico City, location of American Apparel store, 60; next cool city, 62
Mexico City Monthly (bilingual publication), available at American Apparel stores, 62
Miami Beach (Florida), location for American Apparel store, 63
Minimum wage, American Apparel workers paid double, 60
Montreal, birthplace of Charney, 62
Monogamy, non-preoccupation with among new adult generation, 63
MySpace (social network), 60

N
Na pograniczu kiczu i absolutnego piekna, Polish translation of, 63
Nafta (North American Free Trade Agreement), life in Canada before, 62
Naked people, beauty of, 60
National Geographic, style of cheesecake, 60

O
O.C., The (TV series), 60
Onion, The (alternative newpaper), 61
Oui (magazine), used as in store displays, 60

P
Page, Bettie, 60
Paris (France), location of American Apparel store, 60
Penthouse (magazine), used as in store displays, 60
Pizzaroni, Luca, friend of Charney, 60
Piercings, unacceptability in American Apparel ads, 62
Platonic ideals, T-shirts exemplified, 60
Pleasure, heightened state of in American Apparel ads, 60
Political gestures, yoked to certain modes of consumerism, 61 (See: Consumerism)
Plucked and trimmed eyebrows, unacceptability in American Apparel ads, 62
Polynesia, girls of, 60
Purple Fashion (obscure art-hipster publication), 61

R
Richardson, Terry (photographer), 61
Russell Athletic (T-shirt), 62

S
Safde, Moshe (architect), uncle of Charney, 62
Safdie, Sylvia (painter, sculptor), mother of Charney, 62
Santa Cruz, U.C. (American university), 62
Schmatte business, 60
Seoul (Korea), location of American Apparel store, 60
Sharper Image (retailer), vision of hipster version of, 63 (See: 7-11)
7-Elevan (retailer), for hipsters, 63; (See: Sharper Image)
Sexual harassment (lawsuit against Charney), 60; 63
Short hair (female), unnaturalness of, 62
Soprano, Tony (TV character), 63
Sperry Top-Sider (shoes), 62
Spunt, Alexandra, American Apparel senior content advisor, 62
Suicide Girls (website), 61

T
Tattoos, unacceptability in American Apparel ads, 62; possibility of Charney falling in love with a girl who has, 62
Tel Aviv (Israel), location of American Apparel store, 60
Tokyo (Japan), location of American Apparel store, 60
Tighty Whitey (underwear), impressive achievement of style resurgence, 63
Tufts University (American university), education of Charney at, 62

U
Underwear, Charney's pride in adult film star wearing, 61

V
Vanity Fair (magazine), favorably compared to Vice, 61
Vertical Integration, business model, 60
Vice, anti-P.C. lifestyle magazine; 61; "Our Vanity Fair," 61
Village Voice, The (alternative newspaper), 61
Vintage T-shirt, 'rad'-ness of, 62

W
Warhol, Andy (artist), early hand-painted works, 60
Whole Foods (grocer), 61
Wolf, Howlin' (blues singer), 61

Y
Yonehara, Yasumasa (photographer), 60
Young Metropolitan Adults, definition of, 61; Aggressively sexualized world of, 61;

Z
Zhac-Sharlee, French pronunciation of Jacques-Charley, 63 (See: Jacques-Charley)