The end of a era has come for American Apparel — the clothing company is ditching the half-dressed “Instagram hoes” it usually features in its lurid ads and is planning to hire only legitimate fashion models from now on.
The move — detailed in a newly revealed internal memo — is an attempt to distance the brand from its controversial founder, Dov Charney, insiders said. He was the mastermind behind the old ads, before being run out last year in the wake of sexual-harassment allegations.
“[The] company is going through a rebranding image, so we will be shooting models moving forward,” LA casting agent Phira Luon wrote in the leaked March 18 e-mail, obtained by The Post.
“Real models. Not Instagram hoes or THOTs,” she added, using an acronym for “That ‘ho’ over there.”
American Apparel is as famous for its old ads as for its clothes.
They featured amateur models, some of whom were employees of average height and weight, half-dressed in the company’s products and posed in sexually suggestive positions. Often, their private parts were barely hidden.
The new effort to cut the over-the-top sexuality includes orders to airbrush nipples out of online ads for sheer lingerie. The company also wants to hire leggier models to replace the firm’s signature amateurs, insiders said.
Many company insiders believe the switch from trash to class at American Apparel is being pushed by its conservative new chairwoman, Colleen Brown. In the process, some have griped that a new kind of nastiness has creeped in.
At a recent meeting, Cynthia Erland, the company’s new senior vice president of marketing, announced the change by telling as many as 30 employees she didn’t want models who were “too short and round,” the sources said.
“It’s become a running joke around the office — like, ‘I can’t do this, I’m too short and round,’ ” said one employee who claimed to have heard the remark.
“I’ve never felt marginalized or unattractive working for this company until this past week or so.”
Erland later denied banning “short and round” women from the ads.
“This is completely false. American Apparel embraces body types of all shapes, ethnicities and sizes, and our model casting has and will continue to reflect this,” she said.
Luon apologized for the “Instagram hoes” comment, saying it “was just an inappropriate, off-color joke that was not intended to defame the client’s name or philosophy/views in any way.”