American Apparel in hot water over increasingly raunchy pics

US clothing giant American Apparel has come under recent attack by lobbyists accusing the retailers of using pornographic images of women to sell their clothes via their website and advertising campaigns. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story on Sunday detailing the condemnation of the company's risque images by spokespeople for the Women's Forum Australia and the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics.

One spokesperson quoted by SMH expressed their concern that the men were not being sexualised in the same way the women were. While the girls pose provocatively sans their underwear the men appear on their site conservatively presented in button up shirts and cardigans.

American Apparel have always emphasised their use of real people instead of professional models to star in their ads, catalogues and on their website, many of whom work for American Apparel. Their website accepts the submission of images for people who think their look corresponds to the American Apparel image and would like to appear in the shoots. It would appear some increasingly adventurous would-be female models have been approaching the company as of late, with their images moving from am I imagining it or is the girl next door flirting with me? to images of girls with the hands down their pants, writhing topless in bed, or gems like the above. Although on further inspection it has be said it would appear sexualisation of males does appear from time to time in their imagery, apparent particularly in some disturbing images of founder Dov Charney in his underwear (who SMH also reports has been the subject of four sexual harrassment cases from former employees).

This isn't the only controversy American Apparel has had in recent months surrounding their images. Woody Allen reached a US$5 million settlement with the company to end a lawsuit over the unauthorised use of the film director's image taken from a scene in his film Annie Hall in which Allen is dressed up as a Hasidic Jew. The images appeared on billboards in Los Angeles and New York.