American Apparel Celebrates the 6th Anniversary of Its First Stores

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- American Apparel (NYSE Amex: APP) is celebrating its sixth year anniversary as a retailer. On October 13th, 2003, American Apparel opened its first store in Montreal, following it quickly with a store in New York City and Los Angeles. It was the beginning of the fastest roll-out in retail history.

The first store, in Montreal on St-Laurent Blvd, opened the day after Canadian Thanksgiving and did $1,100 in sales. On October 19th, 2003, the company opened in Echo Park in Los Angeles at the corner of Sunset and Alvarado. In New York City, a few weeks later, the American Apparel on Broadway and Washington Place sold $5,500 worth of clothes on its first day. Two of the original stores remain flagship locations for American Apparel in Los Angeles and Manhattan. In the six years since, American Apparel has grown from those three stores to more than 275 in 20 countries including Brazil, Israel, China, Japan and others.

"This has been a very interesting journey for us," said CEO and founder, Dov Charney. "It couldn't have happened without the hard work and support of our employees and customers."

In 2003, American Apparel was a small company, known for the blank t-shirts it sold to screen printers and private labels. The first stores sold just these basic t-shirts, dresses, socks, underwear and sweatshirts. Today, American Apparel has expanded to include men's button-down dress shirts, swimsuits, jackets, hosiery and other products in a wide array of prints and fabrics. These garments are knit, dyed, sewn, designed, distributed, marketed and modeled by American Apparel employees in Los Angeles - a vertically-integrated operation that now includes over 9,000 employees and $500M in annual sales.

"We've had a challenging year but we've accomplished a lot in a short time. In my opinion, we're just getting started," Dov Charney said.

About American Apparel

American Apparel is a vertically integrated manufacturer, distributor, and retailer of branded fashion basic apparel based in downtown Los Angeles, California. As of September 30, 2009, American Apparel employed approximately 9,000 people and operated over 275 retail stores in 20 countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Israel, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and China. American Apparel also operates a leading wholesale business that supplies high quality T-shirts and other casual wear to distributors and screen printers. In addition to its retail stores and wholesale operations, American Apparel operates an online retail e-commerce website at http://www.americanapparel.com .

SOURCE American Apparel