It wasn’t having oral sex with an employee in front of a female journalist that now threatens to undo Dov Charney, founder of American Apparel. Nor was it simulating oral sex with another female member of staff whom he had ordered to pretend to masturbate in front of him. The 41-year-old’s professional and personal reputation isn’t even on the line because at least three female employees have filed sexual harassment lawsuits agains him (all the cases were settled before reaching trial); nor because he walks through his factory in his underpants and conducts meetings wearing just a thong – or a sock. The sock is not, one should add, worn on his foot.
Instead, the fashion empire of this maverick Canadian entrepreneur – who apparently relishes his reputation as a pervert and a libertine – has gone from being the coolest company on the block when it arrived in Britain in 2004 to the brink of bankruptcy because its auditor, Deloitte & Touche, resigned last month after discovering “material weaknesses” in the financial controls of the clothing company dating back to last year. Read more.