By Culley Schultz

American Apparel is notorious for carrying its products in small sizes, ultimately cutting the “average” woman from their demographic. The chain’s lack of products to fit buyers wearing above a size 10/12 (American Apparel’s current “large”) has been controversial to say the least.  So now American Apparel is doing something about it. Right?

The clothing company has launched “The Next Big Thing” campaign searching for models to show off their new XL products. Great idea, right? Finally embracing the average sized woman’s body and marketing products to those people! This search should be a joyous one. And yet, American Apparel is still degrading towards curvaceous ladies.

Check out the campaign ad featured on the website:  “Calling curvy ladies everywhere! We’ve heard your requests, and our best-selling Disco Pant (and around 10 other jazzy styles) are now available in size XL, for those of us who need a little extra wiggle room where it counts. To announce these welcome additions to our line, we’re looking for fresh faces (and full-figures) to star in our XLent new campaign. If you think you’ve got what it takes, share a few photos that put your best curve forward for a chance to win a trip to our Los Angeles HQ and factory. Runners up will receive an enviable assortment of our favorite new styles in XL.”

Okay, I’m sorry but the line “for those of us who need a little extra wiggle room where it counts” is degrading. What is that? American Apparel executives should not be the people telling us what size woman requires wiggle room. If someone is happy with their body then power to them. Each of us should decide for ourselves what we think the definition of beauty is and American Apparel should embrace that.

If that didn’t irk you like it did me, consider how the models will be chosen.  The women who have been bold enough to enter the competition are being graded on a one-to-five scale by the public votes on-line. Now in some ways this could be positive, but it must be hurtful to log on-line and see that you scored a 1.56 while the picture next to you scored a 4.79.  I would be crushed to have my photo compared to those of others and then have the results displayed on a worldwide website.

Here we have something that seems to be a good fuelling other issues of sexualization.  While I applaud American Apparel for responding to requests to manufacture clothing in larger sizes to appeal to a broader spectrum of women, I think the way that they have decided to present the campaign is lacking tact.