American Apparel has always been known for its sexually suggestive advertising, which in the past has typically featured amateur models or even employees. The nature of the company’s ads can be attributed to former CEO and American Apparel founder Dov Charney, who allegedly carried on sexual relationships with many of the young women who worked for him.
Since Charney was fired back in 2014, the company is going through a re-branding period, and as a result, they’re looking for more professional models going forward. By “professional,” they mean “no Instagram hoes or THOTs,” according to an email from American Apparel casting agent Phira Luon leaked earlier this week to Animal New York. If you’re not up to date on your lingo, THOT stands for “that hoe over there.” In other words, hoes of any kind need not apply.
After the initial leak, American Apparel model Valerie Chris posted a screenshot of the full email on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ValerieChris_/status/580478598487916545
She went on to say:
https://twitter.com/ValerieChris_/status/580478858987728896
https://twitter.com/ValerieChris_/status/580479185661071360
https://twitter.com/ValerieChris_/status/580479451789705218
Luon told the New York Post that the email was “just an inappropriate, off-color joke that was not intended to defame the client’s name or philosophy/views in any way,” because clearly no one ever told him that the place for inappropriate humor isn’t in a broad form of communication going out to a wide net of people.
American Apparel likewise followed up with this “oopsie! we love our models” post on Facebook:
Good. Now I hope we can put all this “hoe” business behind us because I would hate to boycott the company that makes the most comfortable hoodies to blog in.