Dov Charney

Dov Charney is a Canadian entrepreneur and clothing manufacturer born on January 31, 1969. He is best known as the founder of American Apparel, which grew into one of the largest garment manufacturers in the United States prior to its bankruptcy in 2015. Charney later established Los Angeles Apparel and serves as chief executive officer of Yeezy, a brand owned by Kanye West. He is a nephew of architect Moshe Safdie and a cousin once removed from the Safdie brothers.

Charney was born to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec. His father, Morris, was an architect, and his mother, Sylvia, was an artist of Syrian-Jewish descent. Diagnosed with ADD in kindergarten and dyslexic, Charney attended St. George's School of Montreal and Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. During his high school years, he began importing Hanes and Fruit of the Loom t-shirts from the United States to Canada, transporting them on Amtrak trains from New York to Montreal.

In 1989, Charney began selling t-shirts under the American Apparel name. He dropped out of Tufts University in 1990, borrowed $10,000 from his parents, and established the business in South Carolina before relocating to Los Angeles in the mid-1990s. By 1997, all manufacturing was situated in downtown Los Angeles. American Apparel opened its first retail stores in 2003 in Los Angeles, New York, and Montreal, expanding to 281 locations by 2009 and reporting record sales of $634 million in 2014.

Under Charney, American Apparel was recognized for simple, un-airbrushed advertisement campaigns that frequently featured non-professional models. Charney also led social activism efforts through the brand, including the 2004 Legalize LA immigration reform campaign and the 2008 Legalize Gay campaign opposing California's Proposition 8. While Charney publicly criticized poor international factory conditions and proposed a global minimum wage for garment workers, his own operations faced scrutiny regarding mandatory arbitration agreements and labor practices.

American Apparel suspended Charney in June 2014 and officially terminated him as chief executive officer in December 2014, citing alleged policy violations regarding harassment, discrimination, and corporate asset misuse. Charney denied all criminal and civil allegations, characterizing his removal as a coup. In 2016, he founded Los Angeles Apparel, maintaining domestic manufacturing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the factory produced face masks and medical gowns, though public health officials later ordered it closed due to infection control violations.

Charney was the subject of several sexual harassment and assault lawsuits over his career, all of which he denied. In 2022, Charney filed for personal bankruptcy, owing tens of millions of dollars to creditors. He lives in the Garbutt House in Silver Lake and is the subject of the 2025 Netflix documentary film Trainwreck: The Cult of American Apparel, directed by Sally Rose Griffiths.