Charney casts the world of American Apparel in particular and fashion in general as a business where everyone casually dresses and undresses for creative reasons and uses foul language with abandon.
"You talk to any man who works in entertainment or fashion, and if he tells you he has not used the word 'slut' . . . I think he's lying."
Fink rejects Charney's argument. "It's the height of absurdity that because it's the garment industry, that allows him to call women" by particularly vile words, Fink said.
On a tour of American Apparel's offices Monday, two employees said that language gets "salty" at the office.
A journalist for Jane magazine wrote that during a series of interviews she conducted with Charney, he masturbated in front of her "eight or so times." Asked about the article, Charney said in an interview, "I didn't think she would exploit our relationship."
During the conversations, he says, he thought it was simply "two people having a private time. You could say, 'You knew she was a reporter.' I made a mistake."
The journalist, Claudine Ko, acknowledged that the situation was "unconventional" but said she made clear she was doing a story. "At all times, my recorder and my note pad were there," she said.
Charney met a Times reporter Monday in his loft-like office at the American Apparel factory looking like a rumpled preppy, which he once was. He graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. He wore an untucked blue button-down shirt and dark-blue cotton trousers on his skinny physique, his bearded face framed with oversized square eyeglasses.
On a wall covered with framed notes and pictures, a long string of calendar photos showed bare-breasted, smiling Polynesian women in tropical locales. "That's just something personal," he said. "Reporters always go to that," he chided.
Although many clothiers have created an overtly sexual mystique to sell their wares, Charney has pushed things further than most. In the signature American Apparel photos, young women -- never professional models -- peer at the camera, sometimes in T-shirts and little else. The company's skin-tight shorts and leggings are sometimes photographed on topless women contorted into porn magazine poses. But what makes the photos particularly edgy is their flat background and the lack of glamorous makeup, leaving the subjects looking vulnerable and raw. His fashion colleagues generally commend Charney's ad campaigns. In 2005, he won an LA Fashion Award for marketing excellence.
"I think it's no worse than the old Calvin Klein ads that looked like they were shot against a grainy wood paneling in someone's basement," said Los Angeles-based designer and retailer Trina Turk, recalling the uproar that the Klein ads caused more than a decade ago. "The people are sort of normal-looking. That's kind of refreshing. They haven't been retouched to within an inch of their lives."
No one wanted to venture a comment on the sexual harassment case that Charney faces. "I think he's built an amazing business," said Turk, who burst into laughter when told of Charney's reason for wearing his underwear in the office.
"That's hilarious," she said. "I guess I'm glad I don't work there."
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carla.hall@latimes.com
