American Apparel Company

Can you mass-market vintage? American Apparel, the influential brand that put a hipster T-shirt store on every corner, is giving it a shot. California Vintage is the new retail concept from the Los Angeles company: an inviting shop stocked with secondhand clothing and augmented by a few American Apparel staples such as T-shirts, leggings and socks. The first California Vintage in the U.S. opened last week on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.

In Los Angeles, where garment factory owners seem most likely to make the news when they are raided by the government, Dov Charney wants to be famous, not infamous. The 33-year-old owner of one of the city's largest garment factories has built a reputation as a fighter for workers' dignity. Media profiles praise him for lavishing generous pay and benefits on his employees and preserving jobs that might otherwise be lost to foreign sweatshops.