IntroductionAmerican Apparel is a clothing brand and company known throughout the world. Basically AA is a clothing manufacturer, distributor and retailer based in Los Angeles, California, United States. Today it is known to all that this company is a sweatshop-free, vertically integrated company with a strong CRS position that strongly supports workers' rights and seeks to legalize the illegal foreign workforce of the American garment industry. American Apparel is also known as a company that rejects typical fashion advertisements and performs its own design, marketing, and advertising of fashionable clothing. If American Apparel is such a nice, innocent company, why has it lost consumer interest and seen declining sales revenue? This research will take an in-depth look at AA's key platforms mentioned above and perform an analysis to examine, whether each of these platforms has contributed to the company's current downturn. Additionally, American Apparel and its business model will be compared to its key competitors in the industry, to find out which other (if any) business models are successfully operating.Dov Charney and American ApparelDov Charney is a founder, president and head of Canadian origin Executive Director of American Apparel Inc. According to Reuters (2013) AA operated 251 company-owned retail stores in twenty countries as of January 31, 2013 and still operates an online website serving customers from more than sixty countries around the world updated . It's not an easy job running such a large business, no wonder AA employs more than twelve thousand employees worldwide. It is also understandable that competition is very strong in the fashion apparel industry, as it has many major players l...... middle of paper ......businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/may2009/ db20090518_942184 .htm [18 November 2013].16. American Apparel Inc. (2013). Financial History: 10-K Annual Report. Available at: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/APP/2812271912x0xS1336545-13-9/1336545/filing.pdf (accessed November 20, 2013).17. H&M (2012). Annual Report 2012. Available at: http://about.hm.com/content/dam/hm/about/documents/en/Annual%20Report/Annual-Report-2012_en.pdf (accessed 20 November 2013) .18. Hansen S. 2012, “How Zara Became the World's Largest Fashion Retailer,” The New York Times, 9 November. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-into-the-worlds-largest-fashion-retailer.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 [November 19, 2013 ].19. Inditex (2013). Inditex press dossier. Available at: http://www.inditex.com/en/downloads/ITX-Dossier-p12-en.pdf [19 November 2013].